Anyone who is involved in education is Ohio is aware of the "Graduation Crisis" looming on the horizon due to new standardized tests tied to graduation (~40% of juniors are not on track to graduate). While I was fully aware that many on the State Board of Education were either unaware of the problem or unwilling to admit it existed, I did not believe they truly thought that we cared more about our students getting a diploma than learning. That is, until I read this blog post, which included that exact sentiment from State School Board President, Tom Gunlock.
So, I quit eating dinner and wrote to him as well.
An open letter to Tom Gunlock, President of the State Board of Education in Ohio:
Mr. Gunlock,
I was recently directed by my principal to read your response to Matthew Jablonski’s email of concern about the “Graduation Crisis.” I was dismayed at, and quite frankly offended by, your comment that asking for the graduation requirements to be changed means we are not interested in educating our students. More than anything, I would love to educate my students, but I frequently find my passion for education and my ability to teach to be hindered by testing.
I can see how from an outside perspective, these tests may seem reasonable to you. After all, you have been told that these tests are designed to determine whether or not a student has achieved a 10th grade education before they graduate. The problem, as Mr. Jablonski tried to explain in his email, is that the skills employers want are not the skills being tested. As a teacher, I am therefore forced to choose every day whether I should prepare my students to answer questions like those that will be on the test (even though we have been given very little information on that) or to prepare them to handle novel situations in the real world.
As an Algebra 1 teacher, I will use the practice test items available for that subject to illustrate my point (see the Algebra practice test scoring guide). The most obvious problem with these items is that they are scored only 0 or 1 point, regardless of the answer. None of the students’ process is rewarded, and in fact, none of the problems require students to share their thinking in any way. If the goal is to prove that students are ready for college or career, these questions do a poor job of it. Less than half of the questions (2, 4, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16) even attempt to link the math practices tested to real-world scenarios and instead ask students to interpret an obscure equation or graph.
I was particularly distressed by the scoring on Question number 7 (page 72 of the document). The question clearly has 3 parts (graph the first line correctly, graph the second line correctly, place the star in the correct area), yet a student who gets 2 of the 3 parts correct gets the same score as a student who doesn’t even attempt the problem—ZERO. Assuming that at least last year’s tests were scored in a similar way, many students’ scores are not even close to being reflective of their knowledge of performing algebraic calculations
This brings me to my next point. Conrad Wolfram, the director of the world-renowned mathematical company Wolfram Alpha, is an outspoken critic of the traditional way of teaching math—as a set of rules and calculations. He proposes that there are four stages of mathematics in action:
1. Posing a question
2. Going from the real world to a mathematical model
3. Performing a calculation
4. Going from the model back to the real world, to see if the original question was answered.
In the 1970s, computational skills were very important to employers, ranking 2nd on the Fortune 500 “most valued” skills. Since then, computers and calculators do almost all of that work and that skill is now at the bottom of the list. Yet, this is the only skill from the list above that is assessed by the Algebra EOC. If you want to know whether students are leaving high school able to do the other three stages of mathematics, a standardized test is not the answer. Real, high-level thinking cannot be measured in a standardized way. There is also an incredible amount of research suggesting that students’ brains grow the most when they make mistakes, yet these tests punish students who are anything but perfect (0 or 1). If you don’t believe me, or would like to read more, then I encourage you to look at any of the work done by Jo Boaler, a world-renowned mathematics professor at Stanford University.
I understand that the proposed purpose of these tests was to raise the level of rigor for students to solve a problem you outlined in your email—that students are not prepared for the workforce. As Mr. Jablonski and many other educators and administrators have tried to point out, these tests are a false solution, as they test some of the least important skills to employers.
Quite frankly, these tests are only deemed necessary because there is an unfounded lack of trust in teachers to provide quality educations. As Mr, Jablonski explained, there is no federal requirement to have a test tied to graduation. If in fact you are concerned that teachers are not providing a quality education, then I have many suggestions for how you could explore that further. One of the most powerful things you or anyone on the State Board of Education could do is come into our classrooms. I invite you to visit mine any day. If it is a matter of deciding where to invest money, I suggest you spend it improving and adding to teacher preparation programs and teacher professional development that is grounded in research-based practices. Instead, we are asked to spend our professional development time learning how to properly prepare students for and administer a test.
I hope you will understand that I am writing this email in concern for my students and for education in general. I am not the type of person you suggested in your email. I have never tried to cut corners when it comes to education. I graduated in the top of my class in high school and in college. I was chosen to speak at my graduation from Michigan State University. I am a teaching fellow in the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation. I think about how I can improve my teaching all the time. In fact, I spent my entire day off today reading about teaching and revamping my lesson plans for this week (for the tenth time at least). I read Mr. Jablonski’s post while I was eating dinner and literally stopped mid-meal to write to you. I am a passionate teacher who cares about my students and their future. I hope that voices like mine are important to you as the President of the State Board of Education.
Sincerely,
Beverly Stuckwisch
Licking Valley High School Chemistry and Math Teacher
Knowles Science Teaching Fellow
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