2012 Teacher of the Year puts standardized testing into perspective

Council of Chief State School Officers 2012 Teacher of the Year Rebecca Mieliwocki was interviewed on PBS Newshour. In the interview Ms. Mieliwocki said that standardized tests are like taking someone's temperature. They can provide a snapshot of one aspect of students, but do not provide a complete picture of a student's or teacher's progress anymore than taking someone's temperature provides a complete picture of one's health.

Wow! Great analogy!

Breast-feeding leads to better test scores

While it's widely known that breast-feeding has many health benefits, a new study has reinforced earlier research to indicate that breast-feeding can boost your test scores!

A study from Australia in the journal "Pediatrics" found that babies, especially boys, who were breast-fed for the first six months of life or longer, scored higher academically, including in standardized tests when they were older, than children who were not breast-fed.

The research found that breast-fed boys scored 30% better in writing and 20% better in math at 10 years old than their formula-fed peers.

Early Findings from Gates Foundation on How to Measure a Teacher's Impact on their Students Learning Outcomes

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are researching the widely disputed issue of how to measure a teacher's efficacy through their Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) initiative. The more effective the teacher, the better the student outcomes.

The foundation is trying to uncover "a more complete indicator of a teacher’s impact on student achievement" and how such an indicator relates to how teachers are recruited, developed, rewarded, and retained.

The initiative just published their initial findings.

In getting to the answer to the massive question concerning teacher efficacy, the MET initiative captured 13,000 classroom lessons on video, student vs teacher perceptions of these lessons, and consider standardized tests and their relationships to students and their teachers. Based on this raw data, here are some early findings from the researchers:

1. In every grade and subject we studied, a teacher's past success in raising student achievement on state tests (that is, his or her value-added) is one of the strongest predictors of his or her ability to do so again.

2. The teachers with the highest value-added scores on state tests also tend to help students understand math concepts or demonstrate reading comprehension through writing.

3. The average student knows effective teaching when he or she experiences it.

4. Valid feedback need not be limited to test scores alone. By combining different sources of data, it is possible to provide diagnostic, targeted feedback to teachers who are eager to improve.

Exciting stuff! Again, these are early findings so more findings are coming.

Thanks Bill & Melinda for your awesomeness.

Research Brief: Optimal Testing Environment

There's new research out from The Principals' Partnership which explores secrets of acing standardized exams. Some of the tips are consistent with what I've documented in other posts on this blog. According to the research, you should:

• Feel good when entering a testing arena, possessing a positive frame of mind
• Think of the tests as exciting challenges, not something to be endured
• Review and discuss the formats regularly prior to the exam
• Use a lot of practice tests and make sure to learn the vocabulary of the instructions
• Periodically, administer timed tests
• Teach specific skills such as: how to read a passage, reading questions before the passage, outlining writing prompts before writing, underlining key words in the test questions and directions, planning the use of time, completing the questions they know first, going with their first answer, answering every question and not allowing themselves to be distracted by others.
• Get a good night’s rest before the test and to allow sufficient time to arrive at the testing locating with time to settle in and get comfy
• Practice deep breathing and counting to ten to help relax
• Dress in layers so that you can keep comfy during the exam
• Eat a good breakfast and bring a snack that is not salty
• Find and study your weaknesses.

Better readers get better test scores

I came across a report entitled The Data Are In:
Teaching Reading Prepares Students for Standardized Tests.

The report analyzes data from tests taken from New York's ELA in November 2008, March 2009, and June 2009 involving data from 50,000 students. Students were in 3rd through 8th grades. The study found the following trends.

• As reading levels increase, percentages of students passing the state exam increase.
• As reading levels increase, scale scores increase.
• The increase in percentages of students passing and scores rising, taken together, creates a precise pattern that is repeated over and over in each grade and time frame of the year.
• Benchmarks are sometimes wider, sometimes narrower, and often higher than we previously thought.
• Benchmarks also sometimes show slippage from one grade to the next, particularly from 5th to 6th and from 6th to 7th.

Might be a good time to read that order that subscription to Science Magazine after all...

Test day tip for heterosexual males: avoid beautiful women

Psychologusts at Radboud University in The Netherlands carried out a study on how men perform after being the presence of an attractive woman. The results are published in the Journal of Experimental and Social Psychology. The research shows men who spend a couple of minutes with an attractive woman perform poorly in tests designed to measure brain function.

For more, read the Telegraph's article here.

Standardized exams under attack in UK

According to the Guardian, Peter Hyman, who was in Tony Blair's inner circle for almost a decade as a speechwriter and strategist before he left to become a teacher, says that the exam system don't teach children to think. The article quotes what Hyman wrote in the Observer, "There is almost an unspoken deal: we'll spoon-feed you the required information to pass your exams, if you play by the rules and do your homework on time."

This is the recurring criticism of systems that use standardized exams, that students can simply be taught to what is needed to pass the exam, and nothing else. I'll be very interested to see if the UK works out a better system...

Experts weigh in on the value of standardized tests

There's a fascinating discussion on standardized tests here.

Closing the standardized test results gap by changing the test

Is it just me or does this smell of the usual political manipulation of test results?

According to boston.com, Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine today spoke about his work as the Governor of Virginia.

And, I am so proud of the work we are doing in Virginia to boost achievement in schools:

More than 87,000 ESOL students in the Commonwealth far outpace English language learners in other states around the country. Right now the National Assessment of Educational Progress – known as “the nation’s report card” – ranks Virginia number one in the nation for fourth-grade reading proficiency by English language learners.

Virginia’s ESOL program has also made significant strides to improve learning outcomes for English language learners – the Commonwealth now leads the nation in achievement. We took a stand against standardized tests designed for native English speakers, and created alternative tests for English language learners instead. Virginia closed the achievement gap between English language learners and other students from 21 points to 9 points, and improved the pass rate on Standards of Learning tests by non-native speakers by more than 20 percent (from 55 percent to 78 percent) since 2003. Virginia’s English language learners have also improved achievement overall on high school exit exams and national standardized tests.

Fitness level affects academic performance

According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, your fitness level is related to your academic performance. The following are findings from a study of grades K-8 in the 2007–08 school year:

- Standardized test score performance increases consistently with increasing fitness across all weight groups.

- Overall, students in the top 5% in fitness score 36 percentile points higher on standardized tests than students in the bottom 5% in fitness.

I guess that means that jocks aren't so dumb after all...

Only 20% of 16,000 sixth graders passed standardized exams in Math, Science and languages

In Gaza that is. Or at least that's what the Institute for Middle East Understanding says here.