Slapping down schoolkids
Self-styled education scholar Kathy Emery has done an analysis of SFUSD's test scores that purports to debunk the notion that student achievement has improved.
While Emery's presentation is pretty close to utterly incomprehensible, her point appears to be that SFUSD's achievement hasn't actually risen because SFUSD's demographic profile has become significantly higher-income.
But actually, that isn't true. The percentage of students qualified for free/reduced lunch in SFUSD has increased over the past five years, not decreased as Emery apparently believes.
Just a caution in case this inaccurate information starts getting circulated.
It's a slap at our kids, teachers and school district to disdain their improved achievement, and there seems to be a faction just scrambling for ways to do that. As an SFUSD parent I rather resent the effort going into putting down my kids and their schoolmates, but in this case it's also done in error. I hope Emery will correct the misinformation on her website.
— Caroline
While Emery's presentation is pretty close to utterly incomprehensible, her point appears to be that SFUSD's achievement hasn't actually risen because SFUSD's demographic profile has become significantly higher-income.
But actually, that isn't true. The percentage of students qualified for free/reduced lunch in SFUSD has increased over the past five years, not decreased as Emery apparently believes.
Just a caution in case this inaccurate information starts getting circulated.
It's a slap at our kids, teachers and school district to disdain their improved achievement, and there seems to be a faction just scrambling for ways to do that. As an SFUSD parent I rather resent the effort going into putting down my kids and their schoolmates, but in this case it's also done in error. I hope Emery will correct the misinformation on her website.
— Caroline
5 Comments:
what misinfo are you talking about caroline?
i think dr. emery's analysis is very useful to seeing more clearly the inequality in the SF schools.
eric
As I said, whatever information she's trying to get across is presented in such an incomprehensible manner that it's difficult to tell just what the point is. But I THINK what she's saying is that our kids' improved achievement is meaningless because their socioeconomic profile has risen.
It's demonstrably inaccurate that the socioeconomic profile has risen. That's the misinformation I'm talking about. It's also mean-spirited and unkind to attack our children, teachers and schools by disparaging their achievement.
Caroline, it seems strange that you are accusing Kathy of being mean spirited and unkind (in your comment), when your first sentence starts with “self-styled education scholar Kathy Emery..” – there is nothing self-styled in a PhD in Education from UC Davis.
You do, however, seem to prove your point that the webpage is “pretty close to utterly incomprehensible” since you clearly did not understand it (and that is me being unkind to you – but honest – sorry!). Kathy does not “attack our children, teachers and schools by disparaging their achievement”. Nor do I see her claim that “our kids' improved achievement is meaningless because their socioeconomic profile has risen”.
What she does claim is that we don’t know, because the tests are meaningless (because, “Standardized tests are created so that the results closely correlate with socio-economic status”), and that “Basing assessment on test scores alone, or even primarily is highly ideological.” And she backs it up with statistics and links to other researcher’s data.
What she is saying, is” The real question today … is how can parents, teachers and other local community members work together so they begin to trust each other enough to have honest, deep and ongoing conversations about educational goals, assessment, pedagogy, curriculum, standards, governance, and so forth?”
Maybe we can start discussing this question, and looking for alternative and more honest methods for assessing achievement, as Kathy suggests?
Granted, I could just be exceptionally slow-witted. But even with Sylvia's clarification, it still amounts to disparaging kids' achievement, which is what I object to.
Sorry, I would like to clarify again: Kathy is not disparaging kid’s achievements – she is disparaging the tests. She argues that the tests (by design) say nothing about kids' achievement / knowledge, but everything about kids' / their parents' socio-economic status. Kathy (and others) thus present a fundamental critique of standardized tests and she asks us to be wary of the use and interpretation of standardized test results. (Which, I agree, amounts to asking for a paradigm shift, since we grew up on tests and are used to trusting them…)
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