I am a fan of Dick Innes. He’s an excellent researcher and former colleague of mine at the Bluegrass Institute. He’s now broken through the technical barriers to bring his message of education accountability in Kentucky to the YouTube crowd. If you care about education in Kentucky, please share these videos with as many educated and concerned folks that you can.
… for silliness rising to unconstitutional levels.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education defends the rights of students and faculty to practice their first amendment rights on America’s campuses. This right is shockingly in danger at our bastions of tolerance and communication of course, since we should only be tolerant of certain things…
This week Murray State’s sexual harassment definition was named FIRE’s Speech Code of the Month for its overly broad restrictions such as:
* “Calling a person a doll, babe, or honey”
* “Making sexual innuendoes”
* “Telling sexual jokes or stories”
* “Turning discussions to sexual topics”
* “Looking a person up and down (elevator eyes)”
* “Displaying sexual and/or derogatory comments about men/women on coffee mugs, hats, clothing, etc.”
You read that right. This poorly designed and unfunny coffee mug could potentially be a violation:
But does that mean it is necessarily unacceptable? Actually according to Murray’s website, it does:
UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIORS FALLS INTO 3 CATEGORIES:
1. Behavior that is clearly wrong any time it happens: grabbing someone’s genitals, forced kissing, nasty insults, blocking someone’s way, stalking.
2. Behavior that is offensive to some people and not to others: jokes, language, teasing.
3. Behavior that may or may not be offensive, depending on who is doing it or how it is done (the nature of the relationship) touching, compliments, asking someone out for a date.
So if the coffee mug is offensive to me, it’s unacceptable. Also, requesting dates is unacceptable.
Welcome to free speech on America’s campuses.
The new Senate Bill 1, to replace the state’s troubled CATS public school accountability tests is smoking out a lot of terribly uninformed criticism. It’s coming from legislators, education leaders and some in the print media. As the critics of this bill sound off, it is becoming clear that this bill’s opponents are locked in some sort of time warp. These people remain remarkably uninformed about advances in the art and science of testing that have been made since KERA’s passage in 1990. The prisoners of the warp are somehow missing the many obvious indications that the CATS assessment is a very troubled and unreliable indicator of Kentucky’s education performance.
Sadly, so long as such antiquated ideas are allowed to dominate the education system here, Kentucky will continue to fall behind the leading edge of education and testing in this country. As long as the denial of CATS’ faults continues, Kentucky’s children will continue to receive far less that they need to succeed in the modern world.
So, let’s examine some of the more out of touch comments that have surfaced.
One of the earliest SB 1 attacks came from the always sharp-tongued, but remarkably uninformed, editorialist at the Courier-Journal.
This “prisoner of the warp” must have been asleep for ages. How can changing a testing program that is supposed to be the driving force for positive change cause damage when, after nearly 18 years of reform, nearly half of the freshmen entering Kentucky’s colleges right after high school require remedial course work?
How can it be harmful to dump a test that provides grossly inflated scores – scores that have been steadily becoming more inflated ever since the CATS started in 1999?
The Courier’s education Rip Van Winkle is also clueless about what is really happening to writing instruction in Kentucky and the way SB 1 plans to handle the problem. Far from the accusations in the Courier attack editorial, writing portfolios are not going away under SB 1. Instead, the program is going to be revamped so portfolios can be used the way they were actually created to operate – as a powerful tool for teachers. Portfolios won’t be in the CATS accountability formula under SB 1, but accountability for them continues as their use is going to be closely monitored. SB 1 requires the Kentucky Department of Education to audit 20 percent of all the schools each year to insure that this writing program is running as required. Do you really think schools would ignore any program that is going to get such frequent inspection?
Another person raising questions about SB 1 is the head of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. The
February 19th Courier-Journal reports that in reaction to SB 1, Prichard’s president now cautions against making changes to the CATS. Per this Prichard leader, any changes could take away or weaken school accountability, putting overall support of education at risk.
As you read this Courier-Journal article, you get the distinct impression that there has been a 180 degree turn from everything Prichard said in a formal report in 2005. That report actually calls for many of the things included in Senate Bill 1.
For example, in 2005 Prichard called for replacing the high school CATS tests with something better, listing this as a “Top Priority” (Page 16). That’s right – Prichard indicated replacing at least a part of the CATS test program was a high priority.
Prichard also indicated in their 2005 report that the CATS tests need better alignment with what kids really need throughout all levels of education, including college (Page 14). Senate Bill 1 explicitly requires exactly that alignment. Now, Prichard doesn’t want that? Go figure.
By the way, this isn’t the first time Prichard switched signals on education issues. In the same 2005 report Prichard also suggests that students need early diagnostic assessments that are better aligned to what kids need later in school, and these tests need to start no later than middle school (Page 14). We actually got tests like that less than a year after the Prichard report came out when legislation led to the use of the EXPLORE and PLAN assessments for eighth and tenth graders. Those tests give teachers and parents feedback and diagnostics on each individual student, just like Prichard said they wanted.
However, Sexton and his crowd didn’t support that 2006 legislation, either. Fortunately, we still got those outstanding EXPLORE and PLAN assessments, which are aligned to what kids need in postsecondary education and on the job site. But, it was no thanks to Prichard.
All of this nonsense certainly is upsetting some of our key legislators who understand what is happening, and why change is needed. For example, you can hear comments from Senator Dan Kelly and other common sense observations from other Kentucky senators by listening to the KET archive of the Senate floor session on February 21st.
If you listen to this recording, start the download and set an alarm clock for 58 minutes to alert you when Kelly’s comments begin. The first hour of the session is devoted to lots of recognition and honors that might not interest you. The meat of Kelly’s comments should start shortly after your alarm goes off. As an alternative, drag the time slider on your media player not quite to the middle of the scale to find the start of Senator Kelly’s and the others’ comments. They are worth the time and trouble to hear.
And, keep tuned in to this blog for more about the nonsense about not changing the CATS. We want Kentucky to have the full story so that the best possible decisions for children can be finally made.
KET’s Kentucky Tonight did a segment today on Senate Bill 1, which proposes to replace Kentucky’s bloated and unreliable CATS assessment with something more trustworthy.
CATS Fan(atic)s Representative Harry Moberly and Kentucky Education Secretary Helen Mountjoy were doing their level best to discredit SB 1, but in the process they mostly just provided considerable evidence that they have not kept up with the advances in testing technology over the past 20 years that make the CATS model outmoded.
I will be writing a lot about those antiquated ideas in the future, but I want to first hit one of the more egregiously incorrect assertions from the CATS Fan(atic)s. That’s the silly assertion that the CATS is a high quality assessment.
Consider this: The federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tested Kentucky’s 8th grade students on math in 2005 and 2007.
Between those two test years CATS underwent a scoring “change” (a funny way to spell inflation) that resulted in a lot of confusion when the 2007 scores came out.
In 2005 the CATS 8th grade math proficiency rate was 36.34 percent or more while NAEP only reported 23 percent were proficient or above. After the resetting of scoring standards in 2007, the CATS 8th grade math proficiency rate exploded to 51.84 percent (in just two years). However, in 2007 the NAEP reported only a slight improvement to 27 percent proficient or above.
However, there is an additional problem. Exclusion of Kentucky students with learning disabilities doubled on the NAEP between 2005 and 2007. That happened even though the NAEP offers testing accommodations. As a result of this sharp and unexpected increase in excluded kids, the real proficiency rate rise on the NAEP is even less than the 23 to 27 percent reported.
How can CATS be a high quality test when the same students get less than half the proficiency score on the NAEP, and the rate of rise in that proficiency rate is much, much lower on the NAEP, as well?
So, who ya gonna trust? A test controlled by the very same educators who are being held accountable for the results (the CATS), or a highly regarded federal test controlled by people who have no particular interest in making Kentucky look unfairly good or bad?
And, how can you have much faith in people who ignorantly call the CATS a high quality test when it varies so much from the federal program?
Kentucky is among a tiny group of states that offer no school choice.
That may change. Jim Waters of the Bluegrass Institute gets the lead quote in today’s story on WLKY TV in Louisville.
This has been a long time coming. Dick Innes’s research into the failures of Kentucky’s testing regime and the evidence-based writing of Jim bear no small responsibility for Kentucky’s consideration of charters.
Every Kentucky parent who understands the importance of competition and the value of an education should learn more about charter schools.
[via BIPPS Blog]
Headline: Senate moves to replace Kentucky’s CATS school assessment program with something more rational and effective
Kentucky’s troubled CATS school accountability program may be losing its ninth life. The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that the just-filed Senate Bill 1 puts the expensive and under-performing CATS squarely in the legislative crosshairs.
SB 1’s language has yet to be posted in the LRC Web site, so bill details will have to wait for another post.
However, there are a huge number of issues about the CATS’ validity, effectiveness, and excessive costs, so a quick review of some of the many good reasons to replace this antiquated fad test from 1990 is appropriate now.
1) The CATS has always been more of a club than a help to schools. The scores habitually come back way too late to help schools fix curriculum issues prior to the start of the next school year. In addition, the test has no student diagnostic information, so teachers and parents are left almost clueless about why students score poorly, or well.
2) CATS scores have never been valid and reliable for high stakes individual student uses. We wrote about this in “CATS: An Inadequate NCLB Basis for School Improvement.” See our comments on pages 7 and 8 about how the test design precludes valid individual student scores, even according to Kentucky’s national panel of testing experts.
3) The CATS test is misaligned with the needs of postsecondary education according to a new report commissioned by the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. How can you say a test is valid and reliable when it doesn’t even relate to what students need for follow-on education?
4) CATS dropout and graduation rate statistics are unreliable. That’s not just our opinion. The Kentucky Auditor of Public Accounts says so in an official audit.
5) CATS scores have been constantly inflating since the test’s inception in 1999. See our
NAEP Yardstick report for the details on this one. We used the federal testing program as a ruler to see if CATS scoring was stable. It wasn’t.
6) While CATS scores steadily rose, Kentucky’s freshman college remediation rate stayed virtually stagnant. Check out the Council on Postsecondary Education’s Web site for information on “developmental” course requirements if you doubt this.
7) Other test results don’t reflect the large progress shown by CATS. Whether we talk the National Assessment of Educational Progress or the new PLAN test results, which went DOWN between 2006 and 2007 while CATS high school scores went up, it is clear that the CATS isn’t trustworthy.
And, don’t forget those legendary CATS questions. You know, the ones we ask fifth graders that are no more difficult than the sort of questions Virginia asks third graders. Check this out for yourself on pages 10 through 13 in our report on CATS. This is the sort of nonsense you get when you put the fox in charge of the henhouse. It’s no wonder CATS scores look so high.
Well, that is enough starting ammunition. The Kentucky legislature knows about these problems and a lot more, including the latest potential scandal of teachers being told the test would ask a certain type of question when in fact there may be hidden meanings and certain code words in the test questions that will mesh with secret grading practices for this year’s CATS. If even a small part of this “double-secret” rumor is true, CATS is well past its prime.
Drew Carey has my eternal respect for the video series he’s producing for the Reason Foundation.
This one is perhaps the best thus far.
… if research says they work, then yes:
“I will not allow my predispositions to stand in the way of making sure that our kids can learn,” Mr. Obama, who has previously said he opposes vouchers, said in a meeting with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “We’re losing several generations of kids, and something has to be done.”
In the past, Obama has opposed vouchers and still considers himself a skeptic on their effectiveness.
Not that it should matter, since nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of education or federal authority therein.
