Alive 75: If physicians were held to the same standard as schools

[Catshrink]

Adequate yearly diddily poop, part 2: “Alive 75”

No Child Left Behind mandates that all students be “proficient” (another term worthy of examination) in core subject areas by 2014. Kansas defines proficiency as “meeting or exceeding” the curricular standards for a subject area and grade level. Using the first assessments as a baseline for student performance, AYP is the amount by which student scores must increase each year such that 100% of students are proficient by 2014. If students’ scores don’t increase by that amount, the school is labeled “failing”.

It isn’t just the school’s overall scores that must meet AYP, but also sub-groups of students within the school. Students with learning disabilities, English language learners, and students in poverty must all meet AYP independently of the school overall. It is often these disaggregated scores that cause entire schools to fail AYP.

<snip>

Consider a national requirement placed on physicians: by the year 2014, 100% of patients must live to the average life expectancy, roughly 75 years of age or older. Then, each medical practice will be evaluated based on whether or not their patients’ survival rate improves enough year-to-year to reach “100% alive at 75” by 2014.

“Alive 75” has a nice ring to it, and should sell well; like “No Child Left Behind”. Instead of adequate yearly progress (AYP), Alive 75 could set an “Annual Survival Standard”. Just as NCLB makes no distinction among special education teachers, remedial teachers, and advanced placement teachers; Alive 75 can make no distinction among medical specialties. All doctors, from family practitioners to pediatric oncologists and palliative care physicians, must be held to the same Annual Survival Standard.

And as NCLB makes no distinction among schools in affluent suburbs, rural communities, or inner-city slums, Alive 75 can make no geographic distinctions among medical practices. Clinics in Burlington, Vermont must meet the same Annual Survival Standard as those neighboring Rocky Flats in Denver, Colorado. In order for Alive 75 to mirror public education, no medical practice can turn unhealthy or uncooperative patients away – they must accept all who live in their community. In fact, just as schools are accountable for test scores of the chronically truant, doctors must be accountable for the longevity of people they never see.

And just as schools are accountable for every new student who moves into the neighborhood, each medical practice is 100% responsible for new patients’ life spans. The quality of medical care, or lack thereof, the patient received earlier in life is irrelevant – only the current medical practice is held accountable. Finally, Alive 75 must disaggregate the data for important sub-groups: patients with genetic disorders, cancers, and life-threatening traumas, for example, must meet the Annual Survival Standard independently of the total patient population.

more here: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-29491-Topeka-K12-Examiner~y2010m4d8-Adequate-yearly-diddily-poop-part-2-Alive-75

[stray cat]

1. so if 92% of a general practitioner's patients died - we would defend his/hers competency

and demand they receive no criticism and would do better if their was a salary increase. After all we defend schools where 92% can't do basic math.

[Catshrink]

2. No, we'd fire the entire staff

the physicians, nurses, receptionists, and the people who sweep the floor.

The statistic you are quoting is part of the problem with standardized tests -- they are a snapshot and can be misused, as it is here. Education is far too complex to use one test to evaluate what is going on in any school. The medical analogy might be to use blood pressure to evaluate physician effectiveness. All patients must have blood pressure in the "normal" range and, if they don't, fire the doctor! But but but.... the doctor can't control people's diets! There are other factors that measure health! Tough cookies, the blood pressure is the standard and if your patients aren't "normal," you're toast.

[sandnsea]

6. Nobody wants to use one test

That is just bullshit and I've posted the facts to you enough to know that you won't change your rants if I post them again.

[Hannah Bell]

26. they *are* using one test.

[Fumesucker]

4. If teabaggers' children do not understand basic civics...

Is that more likely to be the fault of their teachers or of their parents?

If a child whose entire time at home is spent in front of the TV set watching cartoons cannot do basic math, is that the fault of the parents or the fault of their teacher?

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

5. Do you honestly believe

that teachers in a school like the one you mentioned are totally responsible for that result? Do you really think so?

[sabrina 1]

7. Children with learning disabilities often do not test well.

Children whose home lives are dysfunctional also often do not test well. Dyslexia eg, can cause a child who is otherwise of higher than average intelligence, to fail one of these tests because they are so narrowly geared to a a standard that does not require actual learning, but simply to learn for the test. In fact, to use testing as a system of education, could not be more misguided. The system was written by businessmen many of whom, especially friends of the Bushes in the educational publishing business have become extremely wealthy as a result of that disastrous 'education reform' bill.

This article gives some insight into why this system is doomed to fail as an educational system and will most likely be abandoned in the future, although far too late for those being victimized by it now:

Why George Bush's No Child Left Behind Is a Failure

Long before the president's act took effect, and when the administrators at our own schools were infected with the Excessive Testing Virus, meetings and debates and reams of agenda were imposed on wary faculties, experienced enough to realize that objective tests administered after a quarter or a semester or even a year, have limited reliability. No teachers we know would even think of factoring a standardized test score into a pupil's report card. Such scores may be helpful in supplemental ways, but they can never reflect a student's performance and achievment for a given time period. For education occurs according to a complex integrated, and cumulative dynamic that does not allow for 16- or 40-week segments to be validly and separately measured by the Iowa Basic, the S.T.A.R., the I.S.A.T., or any of the other machine-scored products-for-profit proliferating throughout the country.

So we teachers wrote cogent-sounding reports and made pledges of ongoing concern to mollify the administrators, and we finally got back to the teaching tasks at hand.

Then Bush made ETV the plague of the land in 2002 with a plan to close schools, transfer teachers, and uproot students on the basis of these very tests.

Standardized test questions, with a choice of a, b, c, d or none of these, for answers, may be useful for screening contestants for a round of TV "Jeopardy." But they do not offer proof or even illumination on how students think critically, solve problems, communicate orally and in writing, or learn.

The blame for most of the failures in these schools, goes directly to the system itself. Trying to work in a school where children are already handi-capped by poverty etc, within a system that in no way takes into account how children learn, would be the equivalent of a doctor trying to operate on a patient in his wife's kitchen, using only the tools he finds in the kitchen cabinets.

That Democrats have not moved fast to put an end to this disaster is more than disappointing. Worse, the Obama administration is strengthening a law that ought to be rescinded as quickly as possible.

[sandnsea]

10. NCLB is being rewritten, not strengthened

Charter schools operate under a different system. All of you say it every single freaking day.

That's the entire point. Change the system. Change your local public schools. Make them work. Use the charters as a model and an argument to get the tools and structure you need.

[sabrina 1]

12. I am not sure where you are getting the information that

NCLB is being rewritten, but I can't find any evidence of that. And no teacher I know is aware of it either. It IS being strengthened, sadly.

As for using Charters as a model? Charter schools are failing also. And it is for the same reason. NCLB, testing as a means of educating children, simply doesn't work.

Most Charter Schools Miss Test Benchmarks

Performance Echoes Traditional System's

Thirty of 34 charter school campuses, representing thousands of District students, failed to meet reading and math benchmarks on a new test, according to data released yesterday by the D.C. Public Charter School Board.

The poor results on the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment mirror the performance of students in traditional D.C. public schools reported weeks ago. Of the 146 government-run schools, 118 failed to meet academic targets, up from 81 last year. The charter board knew the results for the schools it oversees at the time but declined to release them, saying it would take more time to verify scores and notify parents.

Charter schools are closing down in many places, Ohio eg has moved to close failing Charter Schools. But again, is it their fault? I say for the most part, no, it is not. It is the testing reguirements that is the problem and it won't work ANYWHERE.

Read this report from a Charter School in Boston. While the author, who runs the school, doesn't say so, the same problem that the Public Schools have is what caused that Charter school to be viewed as a failure also. The great work they did with students who are most at risk, could not be detected by testing.

Lessons from a 'failed' charter school

We need schools as diverse as our children and the needs and gifts they present.

Using MCAS as the sole measure of success, without taking into account transiency, learning disabilities, poverty, and English language proficiency, will choke the diversity of charter schools in Massachusetts. As the 2013 deadline for No Child Left Behind approaches - a date when every child in the state must be proficient in reading or math, or their schools will be punished - the pressure toward "paternalism," attrition, and test-driven routines intensifies.

As for the students who don't fit into that paradigm, no one's figured out how to deal with them yet.

This teacher from a Charter School is saying exactly what teachers from the Public Schools have been saying. Because the problem is the system itself and as long as it is the law, schools required to abide by it are doomed to failure, whether they are Public Schools, or Charter Schools. NCLB does NOT need to be rewritten, it needs to be outlawed, and those who wrote held accountable for a generation of children harmed by it.

[sandnsea]

13. Here, choose an acceptable source

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=obama+rewrite+nclb&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&rlz=1R2ADFA_enUS354

You could post links to failed charter schools for the next 365 days and still miss the point. The point is that there are charter schools and turnaround schools that DO work and those are the ones you're supposed to be looking at, to fix your own schools. IF they need fixing. Most schools don't.

[sabrina 1]

20. And there are public schools that do work. But those that are

considered to be failing, both Charter and Public Schools are failing for the same reason. The SYSTEM is a failure, it does not relate to children at all.

Do you have any clue what this system is all about or are you just trying to defend something you actually know nothing about?

As for acceptable sources, I think the Boston Globe is a reliable source. And I could, but am not going to waste the time, post dozens of reliable sources all saying the same thing.

You are wrong about something else also. I do not work in the Public Schools and never have. Actually, if your assumptions were correct, I am the last person who would be defending them as I work within an educational system that is entirely removed from both Charter and Public schools, both of which work with the despicable excuse for an educational system known as NCLB.

To assume that because someone states facts about one of the worst educational systems in the world, that they must be a part of the Public School system themselves, says a lot about YOU. Do you only comment on something if you have a vested interest in it yourself?

So, check your OWN sources, which appear to be what you make up in your own mind. Next time before jumping to conclusions, ask where someone works. Your whole theory as to why I am pointing out facts about NCLB is blown by your false assumptions about me. That leads me to believe that your other theories are based on the same kind of false premise.

I have problems with the Public School system, which is why I never worked in a public school, but those problems pale by comparison to what NCLB has done to the education system in this country.

[Catshrink]

21. +1

And thank you.

[sabrina 1]

23. You're welcome, I cannot believe

that anyone in their right mind would defend this Bush, Corporate written system which was developed for the business world with little or no focus on children or how they learn. And there isn't an educator in the world who, right from the beginning, didn't recognize it as a potential disaster for this country's entire educational future.

But bad as it is to see ordinary people who claim to be democrats, try to defend it, it is devastating to see this WH think that it can work, that it can be 'rewritten'. There would have to be something there, something worth saving, in order to rewrite it. The whole system needs to be scrapped and we ought to look at the Educational systems of countries that have been successful, that use EDUCATORS, not BUSINESSMEN, to develop their educational systems.

It will be abolished eventually, it's that bad. Not before the profiteers have raked in their profits though, like Harcourt/Brace et al who have made a fortune publishing those tests, and at least one generation of Americans will have lost a valuable right to a good education.

Thanks for being among the sane people who are trying to do something about it ~ :-)

[Catshrink]

35. Thank you!

It gets disheartening. These business people have no business in education -- they seems to have the idea that all kids learn the same way and at the same rate, as if they are little widget that can be stamped out on an assembly line. I was really ticked off when Obama/Duncan sent Sharpton and Newt out to promote the plan. Right - neither of them nor Arne have ever taught in a public school and have no idea with it means to actually do the job. If they did, they'd see what we're talking about. They don't talk to teachers though. Maybe it's because what we have to tell them interferes with their plan.

[donco6]

17. It's not being rewritten. Where'd you get that?

Reauthorized maybe.

[nashville_brook]

44. the privatization is exactly what is being used -- so sit tight, you'll be proven wrong soon enough.

[laughingliberal]

29. I agree. In a lot of cases a test only reveals the student's test taking skills

And it works both ways. I can say, with complete honesty, that I rarely showed up in high school, never studied, was rarely without the influence of some chemical or another in my body, and still managed to get a passing grade on every test I ever took. Testing is valuable but only as one means of determining knowledge. Just as there are people like me who can pass a test on almost anything with little or no knowledge of the subject, there are those with poor test taking ability who know their subject well.

[ecstatic]

33. So many teachers automatically assume a minority student has a learning disability

Most of the time, the student is perfectly able and would do quite well if the teacher didn't automatically write them off as "slow" or dumb. I've seen it happen TIME and time again.

[Catshrink]

36. That's a pretty broad brush you're using.

[donco6]

37. That's amusing.

Almost 80% of my kids are "minority." We certainly don't assume they ALL have learning disabilities. The metrics are actually pretty specific.

[Catshrink]

39. And there's no way we could "write off" kids with learning disabilities.

There are those IEPs, IEP meetings, MET meetings, update forms, etc. we deal with all the freaking time. Of my 120ish kids, 25% of them have IEPs or 504s - the paperwork is overwhelming not to mention the need to write modified lessons & assessments depending on the student's disability. There is no extra compensation for the extra work nor is there any extra time allowed for the paperwork. The administration was talking about giving those of us with a heavy sped load an extra prep period but with budget cuts we've lost teachers so that's gone away.

So... I have to comply with the law and offer accomodations for the sped kids. There is only so much of me to go around so who gets left out? The "normal" kids. Time had an article on these kids - those that aren't sped but aren't gifted either - years ago that I remember and pull up from time to time.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989080,00.html

[sabrina 1]

41. And many businessmen believe that children

who need more time to learn without worrying about being tested frequently, are failures if they cannot pass a test. Which is what we are talking about here. A bill written for and by businessmen, most of whom have profited greatly, while what they call an educational system hasn't done a thing for any child with or without a learning disability. The fact that it has been determined that it needs to be 'rewritten' ought to tell you that. And to profit from it, to get their hands on Public Funds, children HAVE TO FAIL, and the best way to do that is to keep testing them. It's two-fold, this scheme, Educational Publishers profit from the testing and when the tests declare the children failures, in comes Neil Bush, Bill Bennett et al with THEIR supplemental educational programs.

As Obama himself said, when he was a candidate:

While Sen. Obama proposed to fix the many substantial problems of the No Child Left Behind Act, he also slammed its shortcomings, and remarked, "... don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of the year preparing him to fill in a few bubbles on a standardized test."

The publishers of those standardized tests have made billions since Bush's NCLB was unfortunately passed into law.

Bush profiteers collect billions from no child left behind

NCLB—the Business Roundtable’s revision of Lyndon Johnson’s Education and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—created a “high stakes testing” system through which the private sector could siphon federal education funds. The result has been windfall corporate profit. What was once a cottage industry has become a corporate giant. “Millions of dollars are being spent,” says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy, “and nobody knows what’s happening.”

The wedding of big business and education benefits not only the interests of the Business Roundtable, a consortium of over 300 CEOs, but countless Bush family loyalists. Sandy Kress, chief architect of NCLB; Harold McGraw III, textbook publisher; Bill Bennett, former Reagan education secretary; and Neil Bush, the president’s youngest brother, have all cashed in on the Roundtable’s successful national implementation of “outcome-based education.” NCLB’s mandated system of state standards, state tests, and school sanctions has together transformed our public school system into a for-profit frenzy.

Kress, former president of the Dallas School Board, began “A Draft Position for George W. Bush on K-12 Education” as early as 1999. Working successfully with then-Governor Bush in Texas for years, the Democrat bolstered bipartisan support behind the compassionate marketing promise to “leave no child behind” through the adoption of high state standards measuring school performance

Oh yes, and no Bush transfer of public funds into private hands would leave out his convicted fraudster brother Neil. Neil coincidentally got into the education business himself with a program that is basically, well, laughable as far as education goes:

Other Kress clients, including Ignite! Learning, a company headed by Neil Bush, and K12 Inc., a for-profit enterprise owned by Bill Bennett, tailored themselves to vie for NCLB dollars.

Under NCLB, as school districts receive federal funding they are required by law to hold 20 percent of those funds aside, anticipating that its schools will fail to meet its Annual Yearly Progress formula. When that “failure” is certified by test scores, the district is required to use those set-aside federal funds to pay supplemental education service (SES) providers. Ignite! has placed products in forty US school districts, and K12 offers a menu of services “as an option to traditional brick-and-mortar schools,” including computer-based “virtual academies,” that have qualified for over $4 million in federal grants

So our tax money once again goes into the bank accounts of Bush family and friends. They've been feeding off the government trough for generations.

To enrich people like Neil Bush and Bill Bennet, neither of whom have a clue about education, they have to bet on the FAILURE of America's children!

Wake up America! As Kucinich said. We have been taken for yet another ride, this time it was called 'education reform'.

[Catshrink]

42. One size education does not fit all

These business people for get that Einstein sucked at math. School didn't work too well for Bill Gates either, he dropped out. Education is not business and cannot be run like a business. Unless they want to turn out a generation of automatons and put the rest out to pasture or something.

[laughingliberal]

43. +10,000 Perfectly stated. nt

[Hannah Bell]

25. i wonder why obama lauded the "big picture" school with scores *lower* than central falls', then?

and why didn't he note that little fact?

i guess it's ok so long as it's a charter school.

39% of which perform *worse* than public schools, 44% at par with public schools, & only 17% better than public schools.

i.e. which perform *worse* overall.

[donco6]

38. I don't.

The Met is a charter school. They don't have to perform - they're already "reformed." LOL!

:sarcasm: in case anyone missed it.

[sandnsea]

3. If people were required by law to go to the clinic all day

And do whatever the clinic said they were supposed to do, then yeah, there had better be a bunch of healthy people.

And as for the mechanic scenario the other day, well dead kids don't have to go to school. Nor do sick ones, nor do the ones who are in the juvenile justice system. Public schools don't deal with EVERY kid, just like mechanics don't deal with EVERY car.

We have a right to try to make the schools better.

[TheMadMonk]

8. Sick ones better be at school on the day. (or have the test taken to them.)

Failure to comply WILL be counted against the school.

And as with kids in school. A refusal to follow instruction would be counted as a failure on the part of the clinic. Not non-compliance on the part of the patient.


I recall to mind our old PM's (Bob Hawke's) famous declaration that no child would be living below the poverty line by 1990.

ANY mandate that requires ABOVE AVERAGE performance by ALL participants is impossible to achieve. Given that this basic fact of statistics has been pointed out on numerous occasions (and will have been pointed out when the first draft of NCLB was written) the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that the ultimate intention has nothing to do with the welfare of the students and everything to do with gutting the public school system.

[sandnsea]

9. That would be why NCLB is getting rewritten

All I really have to say is that I'm glad the teachers at the local level don't whine as much as the teachers at DU.

[sabrina 1]

31. It cannot be 'rewritten'. There is nothing worth re-doing

in George Bush's cynically named No Child 'Left Behind'. Including the sneaky clause that forced schools to hand over personal information on their students to the military for the purpose of recruiting them to fight his wars. Schools that refuse to do so, would lose their federal funding.

The whole disastrous bill needs to be scrapped entirely. It would be a disgrace if a Democratic president were to allow such a failed system to continue to do further damage to the future education of American children.

Especially one who so eloquently pin-pointed one of the major problems with NCLB, 'teaching to the test' as he so rightly said when he was a candidate. One who said that he was 'tired of seeing teachers blamed for failures' and who promised to support teachers, rather than punish them.

He had this to say about NCLB's failure to educate because of its focus on 'testing':

Tests Should Not Be Punishment for Teachers

The goal of educational testing should be the same as medical testing - to diagnose a student's needs so you can help address them. Tests should not be designed as punishment for teachers and students, they should be used as tools to help prepare our children to grow and compete in a knowledge economy. Tests should support learning, not just accounting. Barack Obama, 2007

He understood the only value of a test is to find out where a student needs work. He was smart enough to know that you cannot educate by testing, that testing is merely a tool to help teachers and students to focus on their weaknesses and improve them.

And, he spoke out against vouchers to private schools:

Sen. Barack Obama took a strongly progressive stance for public education and for teachers, and against publicly-funded vouchers to pay for private school education, in this July 5, 2007 speech.

It won't matter whether it is a Charter School or a Public School, the record shows that NCLB is a complete failure wherever it is in use, and Barack Obama was right to focus on addressing it when he made that speech in 2007.

What happened in Florida this week is a travesty. Certainly it is everything that Barack Obama was against. So, I hope he has a conversation with Arne who doesn't appear to be on the same page as Candidate Obama.

[Catshrink]

11. You're right: Why should doctors get off if the patient is non-compliant?

The teacher doesn't get off if the kid just blows off the test or doesn't make an effort.

[sandnsea]

15. Kids who refuse medical treatment

Their doctors go to court because they will be held legally liable for negligence and manslaughter if that kid dies or has permanent damage from mistreatment.

You prefer those kinds of standards?

[Fumesucker]

27. How do you *force* a child to study?

How do you force a child to do their best on a test?

There are some extremely bright kids who are totally turned off by school for one reason or another and then you have those who are just born contrarians.

[laughingliberal]

30. It is a perfect analogy

As a nurse my role was often to teach patients about their condition and the steps to take to manage it. Some patients I could reach easily, some with more effort, some I banged my head against the wall and nothing seemed to get through. 3 months of diabetic teaching 3 times a week and I'd still hear, "Oh, Honey! That little ole Coca-Cola don't have enough sugar in it to hurt anyone." Thank God, my job didn't depend on their blood sugars at home being normal! In the hospital, I could control what they ate and drank. Once they went home? Not so much. Same principles here. The patient (and in this case the student and the parents) must do their part or all my efforts will not produce the desired results.

[EFerrari]

14. What about we hold Arne Duncan to the same standard? n/t

[Catshrink]

16. Perfect!

Let's use his results in Chicago and give him a technical. He may be the President's basketball buddy but he knows nothing about education.

[athenasatanjesus]

18. K&R

[Catshrink]

19. ...

[flvegan]

22. Physicians might need to actually learn nutrition then.

That's not in their best interest.

[Starry Messenger]

24. k & r

You find some good ones!

[laughingliberal]

28. A great analogy. Another I thought of was meteorologists and their accuracy at predicting weather

Better yet, I think they should be held to account for bad weather. It's only fair.

[laughingliberal]

32. Kick nt

[treestar]

34. Classic example of thinking that making a law can solve everything

If the students aren't doing well, make a law saying they must do better.

[Catshrink]

40. Not just better -

they must all be above average.