State tests, feedback under fire

Educators respond to academic distress

A leading educator in Lorain County says a state emphasis on performance standards misses the mark for public education and causes problematic academic distress situations.

“The school district has to deal with what walks through the door,” said Superintendent Greg Ring of the Educational Service Center of Lorain County, 1885 Lake Ave. in Elyria. “We have gifted kids; we have disabled kids; and everything in between. We’re trying to move them along the best way we can.

“Personally, I like a growth model for students rather than pass-fail. That’s what we do in Ohio. (Cause of academic distress) varies from district to district.”

A lot of it depends on poverty and English as a second language, Ring said.

“The important thing is: Are the students making progress?” he said. “Are they making at least one year of growth? And if they are, then the district has the right plan in place.

“It’s certainly going to take a district with issues of poverty and other issues more time to get out of academic distress than a district that has what they need.”

If a child starts a grade below grade level, then the important measure is the amount of growth during that year, Ring said.

The state set up an arbitrary standard and required all students to meet certain criteria regardless of ability, he said.

“That’s my point; that’s not a fair standard,” Ring said. “We ought to be looking more broadly. All the emphasis is placed on one assessment. That’s not right.”

He said he doesn’t think it’s

fair to look at a test taken on one day.

“That’s not fair to the child, the teacher or the school district to be characterized as a failure, in academic distress, based on one test,” Ring said. “We need to look at how kids progress and their social maturity, how they behave.

“The whole system that’s hurt Lorain in some degree is it’s focused on one test.”

Ring said does not know of another district in the county that may be in line for following Lorain into academic distress.

State could do more

The state should be doing more to prevent a district’s downward slide by changing

to a more meaningful testing process, Ring said.

“That’s important,” he said. “We don’t get good student data from the state test. That’s not going to be a solve-all.

“But superintendents in the county are saying we need better data. On a student-by-student basis, we need real time feedback on time.”

With the state tests, students are already six months down the road before the data is reviewed, Ring said.

“What we really need to develop is quick feedback given to the teacher to help that student on the short term, and let them take the test again,” he said. “Right now, the state testing system doesn’t do anything close to that. It’s all in one shot.

“That’s a major problem

with the Ohio testing system right now. The teachers need specific data. That’s going to help a school district get out of academic distress.”

Ring recommends a system similar to a student’s taking a pre SAT or pre ACT test to prepare for the college entrance exams.

The pre-tests point to weak areas the student can work on to achieve a better result at the next sitting, he said.

The state testing system needs to gear itself toward pointing out weak areas for remediation, Ring said.

“The district pays the price for that pass-fail system,” he said. “We take practice ACTs so we get feedback. I think we could develop a better testing system using technology.

“We really need to look at a broader array of things

before we say if a student is making progress or not before we start calling school districts or students or teachers ‘distressed’ or ‘failures.’”

Lorain Academic Distress Commission

Paul Biber retired in 2007 from Lorain City Schools after teaching for 37 years and served on the Lorain School Board from 2007 to 2011.

Biber said he had considered applying for a position on the new academic distress commission, but declined because of his involvement in downtown Lorain development and acquirement of the Lorain Eagles building by FireFish Park Inc., a nonprofit affiliated with FireFish Festival and it’s organizing committee.

“I didn’t want to split my time,” Biber said. “At this point, nothing has really happened. It’s in the works.

“What the commission will do is anybody’s guess.”

Biber hopes the new commission and chief executive officer will find more resources to place more teachers in early childhood education.

“Anybody knows the younger you can get to the child, the better it is,” he said, estimating most students fail a kindergarten readiness test when they start school. “Most of the students who stay in the district for 13 years, actually meet the standards and graduate.”

Because of youth brain development, Biber said the subjects he taught, history and government, traditionally were taught in the senior year of high school.

But because of the state tests, the district moved history to the freshman year and that’s unfortunate, Biber said.

“It’s just not academically sound,” he said. “And it’s not sound to not put resources in the elementary grades.

“That’s where you’re showing marked improvement.”

Biber also recommends homogeneous groupings in early grades, rather than by chronological age.

“Instead of having kids who are intellectually three as well as intellectually six in the same group, you could group them in homogenous groupings and teach according to their needs, which was a no-no,” he said. “We have smart people and educators in this group. Hopefully, they will see it the same way.”