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'Reading First' Flunks the Test, Part Two |
Bill Hudson | 5/7/08
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Read Part One
Some readers may note that this article is designated as “Part Two” of a series. In fact, when I wrote Part One last Sunday, that article was intended to be a stand-alone article, about the failure of the Bush Administration's $6-billion “Reading First” program to show any benefits whatsoever — except, according to a recent congressional investigation, to some big publishing companies friendly with the administration.
In that article, I mentioned in passing that the somewhat controversial, and apparently ineffective, program has been in use at the Pagosa Springs Elementary School — which, according to my unconfirmed estimate, has so far received about $450,000 in Colorado Reading First funding to help our Pagosa teachers learn the “right way” to teach reading skills.
Yesterday, I got a phone call from a friend, letting me know that the Colorado Board of Education (CBE) had just released the CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) reading scores for third graders — and that our fine third graders at Pagosa Springs Elementary School, a group of 97 students exposed to three years of Colorado Reading First, had received lower CSAP test scores in reading than any group of third grade students in Pagosa history.
Maybe this story was bigger than I thought?
I checked out the scores — which I could not find at the CBE website, but which appeared on the Denver Post site yesterday — and found that last year’s crop of Pagosa third graders had received a decent CSAP score of 83. That score designates the percentage of students who received “Proficient” or “Advanced” scores on the yearly test.
The average score for the past five years calculates to 80.
This year, our third graders scored 73.
Continued...
After a half million dollars of supplemental funding — and after three years of training in a supposedly remedial reading program — our teachers are doing a worse job of teaching reading than ever before?
As noted in an earlier series of article about the Pagosa Springs Elementary School budget crisis, the Colorado Reading First program has been a thorn in the side of at least some teachers there.
At a staff meeting last February, Principal Kate Lister had asked teachers to come to a “consensus” about applying for an extension to the Colorado Reading First (CRF) program — a program the school has been using for three years, and which has provided funding for additional reading specialists and aides and touted as an ongoing benefit in the District’s never-ending quest to meet the test score improvements demanded by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program.
Continuing the CRF program would contribute about $150,000 toward the budget deficit the school was facing, the teachers were told — thus saving several jobs from being cut.
The CRF program, however, has its critics at the school. The highly regimented program apparently requires frequent “inspections” by CRF-trained inspectors, causing some teachers to feel “nervous and not treated as professionals,” according to one critic of the program.
One teacher told me that the stresses of implementing the CRF program, along with several other new programs and changes instituted during the 2006-2007 school year, caused a noticeable decline in teacher morale that year.
“Teacher melt-downs — teachers ending the day in tears — became commonplace,” reported one teacher. “This even happened with veteran teachers.”
I was told that the vote to continue the program was itself controversial, conducted without a clear opportunity to openly discuss both sides of the issue, and even without a clear “yes” or “no” choice. Lister, however, interpreted the vote as a clear mandate to re-apply for the program.
I readily admit, I am no expert at figures. Anyone who has seen how I balance my checkbook knows that immediately. So I placed a call to Assistant Superintendent Bill Esterbrook to see if I was misinterpreting something. Esterbrook is the Archuleta County School District’s test score and curriculum wizard — but unfortunately he was out of the office for the day.
So I am left to my own methods of analyzing the scores, for the time being.
Readers who have followed my articles and editorials over the past three years know that I am no supporter of “standards-based education,” or of CSAP test scores as the ultimate measure of education. But here we are at the moment, stuck in a world where test scores are driving school funding — and ultimately, classroom behaviors and teaching practices. We are also in a world where billions of dollars in supplemental programs produce no noticeable results — but where the programs continue anyway, for some reason.
After three years of special teacher training and supplemental funding — and reported teacher stress — our third grade students are testing with scores 10% lower than the five-year average. That seems — to my simple mind — to indicate something is wrong with the overall picture.
Option One: The teachers at Pagosa Springs Elementary School did a terrible job with this particular group of third graders, and the school really ought to be disciplined — or at least given $150,000 to try and fix what’s wrong.
Option Two: Any given group of third grade students has an organic intelligence level, and it doesn’t really matter what system you use to teach them, they are going to turn out basically the same anyway.
Option Three: The whole standards-based, test-score driven system is a sad joke and the new third grade reading scores really mean nothing at all.
Option Four: All of the above.
Part Three tomorrow… |
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