Moving Beyond Dependence On Tests
A canada goose clearance few minutes away, Bate Middle School is a more mundane '70s era, red brick building. But what's happening inside is anything but mundane. I've driven the 37 miles from canada goose outlet uk sale Lexington to see one of the most closely watched efforts in the country to change the way schools assess student learning. Principal Amy Swann and the district's superintendent, Carmen Coleman, have completely overhauled their school's educational philosophy, moving away from standardized tests toward an approach called performance based assessment.
Kentucky was the first state in the nation to adopt the Common Core and the tests that align with it. This spring, the 1,700 student Danville district thinks it's found a better way to teach the Core.
On a Wednesday afternoon in late March, I am waiting in the whitewashed hallway outside Diania Henderson's seventh grade science class to see performance assessment in action. The seventh graders are sporting dresses, jackets and ties. When the end of day bell rings, they file into the basement cafeteria, quiet and tense, with only a few poking each other in the sides, for a snack of cheese crackers and Capri Suns. It is the day of the Science and Math Performance Based Assessments, or, as everyone calls them, the PBATs.
The whole seventh grade spreads out in small groups across the school building. Most of them are toting three sided posterboards, like you might remember from middle school. But over the next two hours, as dusk gathers outside, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary science fair.
When it's his turn, apple cheeked Charlie Hall explains how he was able to lower the heartbeat of his Doberman, Rosie, and stop her from wolfing down her food by petting and talking to her.
Claire Strysick, with her hair in a neat bun, speaks about the impact of oil spills and presents the results of a chemical analysis of aquarium water polluted with petroleum.
A special education student and aspiring chef earns the top mark of "Outstanding" for a detailed presentation on surface tension and various canada goose outlet store uk seasonings.
I watch canada goose outlet as student after student confidently answers questions about the steps of the scientific method, experimental design, math concepts like mean and median, and, most impressively, how the project https://www.buchholz-net.de relates to his or her life. And they listen respectfully to each other, giving helpful feedback.
Most projects are graded "outstanding" or "competent." A few are judged "needs revision," which means the students will keep working on them until they pass muster.
There is high level learning on display here, from the math and science content to independent research and public speaking skills. Yet Bate canada goose coats on sale isn't some gifted school. Of the 400 students, 69 percent qualify for free and reduced lunch, and 38 percent are members of Canada Goose online minority groups. About a fifth are in special ed.
Schools Can Do Better
Five years ago, when Carmen Coleman took over as superintendent, Bate Middle School was on the state "watch list" because of its low test scores. The state commissioner even made a surprise visit to the school to decide whether to shut it down.
And canada goose so in the fall of 2011, Coleman asked her friend from graduate school at the University of Kentucky to take over as principal. "She didn't say, 'Come take over my worst school,' " Swann recalls with a laugh. "But I just saw amazing teachers and kids."
Swann got right to work, reorganizing the staff, introducing project based learning and setting expectations with a "Danville diploma" that canada goose outlet uk included social and emotional skills, ethics, technological literacy, career readiness. In 2013, the school was designated an "exemplar school" by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, one of just 25 in the nation.
What makes the Danville experiment particularly noteworthy is that Kentucky was out ahead of the nation on adoption of the Common Core State Standards for English and math. Swann believes the standards canada goose store are worthwhile, but thinks schools can do better than the tests that go with them. Though the new Common Core tests have been touted as improvements over what they replaced, she says they are really "the same old multiple choice," and adds, "I feel like on a standardized test you're really showing what kids don't know."
Swann and Coleman started looking for alternatives. Together, they visited award winning schools all over the country, such as Big Picture Learning, an international network of over 100 schools that focus on individual passions, and High Tech High, a school in canada goose outlet nyc New Jersey that uses computers in every class.
They were most impressed with a group of 39 schools in New York state called the canada goose outlet Performance Standards Consortium. Since 1997, these public schools have been exempt from state standardized tests. Instead of working from textbooks, students in performance schools create research projects, both solo and in groups, and present them for detailed feedback.
Students in these schools produce documentary films. They research position papers on immigration policy, conduct scientific studies of visual perception, and create mathematics puzzles.
"It makes a big difference if kids are doing something that they care about," says Ann Cook, the leader of the consortium and founder of Urban Academy Laboratory High School, a uk canada goose outlet Manhattan public school in the consortium. According to the most recent data available, Consortium schools in New York City have a dropout rate that's less than half the city's 5.3 percent compared with 11.8 percent. And these students also perform better in college.
From New York To Kentucky
In October of 2012, Swann traveled to canada goose outlet shop New canada goose outlet parka York to see a "moderation study," where teachers at different performance schools get together to review each others' assignments and examples of students' work. This is yet another way in which performance teachers collaborate and solicit feedback to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
One assignment in particular captured Swann's attention. "The teacher asked the students to design an amusement park ride. They had all the math in there, and physics, and it just really sparked something in me: that math doesn't have to be this boring class with lectures and standardized tests. I said, 'Let's take this back to Danville.' "
When she got back from New York that fall, Swann held an all hands staff meeting in the school library. "I said, 'What if we designed a whole new assessment system?' They said, 'That's not possible.' " Swann described all the exciting teaching and learning she'd seen in New York. "They said, 'We like this better than the regular tests. We'll be Canada Goose Parka behind you.' "
Swann asked for an anonymous vote on the new plan, and 98 percent said yes.
A bill to allow Danville to skip the state tests unanimously passed the House in April of this year but was shot down in the Senate. The state Department of Education says discussions to find alternatives are ongoing. Regardless of cheap canada goose what happens, the district will still give the ACT and its practice tests in 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th grades. (ACT scores are tied to scholarship money for public university students in Kentucky, and the nationally recognized test will help them benchmark student learning.)
But the yearly grind of prepping for weeks for state canada goose factory sale tests is over for now. canada goose outlet in usa Swann says it's making a big difference in what teachers do every day, especially in their ability to tailor instruction to each student's needs and interests.
With standardized tests, she says, "from August to April I have to cover this content, and it doesn't matter if the kid is all the way up here, I have to pull them back down to review what they already know. And for the low scoring kids, if I rush them through everything, canada goose outlet jackets they'll have a better chance of guessing it on the test. Everything with school ranking and teacher ranking is based on the tests, when canada goose outlet online uk instruction should be based on reaching official canada goose outlet the individual student and moving them forward."
Walk into a classroom at Bate and you can see students discussing their work together in small groups, clustered around a book or computer. The teachers circulate, ready to help where needed, or pull out a student to work one on one.
