“Green noted that patterns emerge in the data. In the sixth-grade MEAP data for the 2011-2012 school year, African American student scores dropped, while in other grades, scores have increased over the past five years. What happens between 5th and 6th grade for African American students? Green’s experience tells her there needs to be more attention paid to what happens to students in their sixth grade year.”

If you look closely, you see that those are the same kids. In 10/11, the AA 5th graders were around 50% (a dip in the trend); in 11/12, the AA 6th graders were around 50% (a dip in the trend). I repeat: *those are the same kids*. I predict that if you looked at 4th grade reading, you’d see that same dip in the 9/10 school year. It seems to me that if we want to track change over time, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to compare scores of 11/12 6th graders to 10/11 6th graders, we should be comparing 11/12 6th graders to 10/11 5th graders (that is, themselves).

So in other words, don’t just chalk that one trend up to “what happens in 6th grade” (although that is probably substantial, being a move from the relative coziness of an elementary school to the larger and more impersonal middle school). Instead, figure out what is going on with that cohort of students, and why they have had trouble with reading.

As noted by commenter #2, the NWEA test is supposedly a pilot program, but it hasn’t been publicly evaluated (has it even been systematically privately evaluated?), and it’s not even clear what the metrics for evaluation are.

But that’s not the only thing that hasn’t been publicly evaluated. One of the speakers at the board meeting during public commentary asked the board to end the trimester schedule at Skyline. This is a position that I myself have advocated, and have written about on my blog, most recently here: [link]

I have done my own evaluation of the trimester system (I don’t like it), but maybe that’s just me. It’s been my understanding that Skyline started with the trimester system and if the district liked it, all the high schools would switch. Conversely, then, one would expect that if the district had done an evaluation and didn’t like the trimester system, that they would end it. Yet to my knowledge, there has been no public evaluation.

And now I sense a third area, also referenced in this article, into which the district might slide without any public evaluation; any public plan for evaluation; or even (much worse!) any idea that the project was tried in Ann Arbor in the past, evaluated, and abandoned. I’m speaking of the idea of “ability groupings,” or “differentiated instruction, as discussed in the section of the article about student testing and the NWEA. The Ann Arbor school district has a long history around differentiated learning/ability groupings, and in my understanding it was *abandoned* due to the fact that it exacerbated both racial segregation and the achievement gap. Let’s not slide into this without understanding what kind of analysis and evaluation led the district away from differentiated instruction earlier.

If this is their only measure of the “achievement gap,” then I believe they will continue to be met with frustration and disappointment. Earlier in the article, Nelson questions how many kids that don’t do well on the MME go on to be “outstanding citizens.” I would ask the board and administration to consider this question in the larger context…. What research demonstrates that scoring well on the MEAP actually means anything in terms of “success” later in life?

We have college and university professors giving feedback to the public school system in this country, that the students coming up to college since the passage of NCLB and its increased focus on testing, are as a group LESS adept at critical thinking skills, and more and more focused on “what’s on the test.” So I submit to you…. what is the purpose of all this testing???

In addition, the NWEA was inteded as a pilot program last year. But there has been absolutely NO formal evaluation of the pilot to determine its “success.” Instead, we just adopted it based on the feedback from one or two administrators (really just Flye, as far as I can tell), that “teachers like it.” That’s it? Is that an evaluation? The teachers I have spoken to have a much different take on it, so I am skeptical of that feedback.

The Board should have had a metric for determining the value of the NWEA BEFORE even beginning the pilot program. But now that it’s in full swing, they should at least elicit formal feedback from the teachers, principals and parents on how it is working. And that feedback should be ANONYMOUS, so that employees of the district can feel free to give honest answers. The questions should be open ended, not leading. “Do you find value in the NWEA test, and if so, what?” “Are there down-sides to adding this test, and if so, what?” “If you were given the OPTION of using this test in your classroom, would you do so? Why?”

It is amazing to me that these questions have not been asked in a systemic and anonymous fashion.

I would submit that, if some teachers find the NWEA to be helpful in their understanding of where their students are academically, the tool could be made available for them to use. And if some teachers feel that whatever information it supplies does not outweigh the amount of teaching time it takes away, the increased focus on test-taking, the change in classroom culture that it creastes, then they could choose not to use it.

I appreciate Lightfoot’s continual willingness to listen to the community, and bring our concerns to the board and administration. But her questions are continually met be an administration that brushes off specifics with “we are looking into it.” Lightfoot’s questions about decreasing the number of cycles of the NWEA, or giving it at only certain grade levels, are very valid, and deserve more thorough discussion.