Concern About New State Mandate Prompts Madison Schools To Take Different Path

Anna Chang and Carolyn O'Connell were among more than 75 members of the Madison community who gathered Tuesday night to hear the school district's concerns about the state Board of Education's new teacher evaluation guidelines. After the meeting, Chang and O'Connell talked about why they decided to attend.

O'Connell, a Madison mom who is also president of the Island Avenue School PTO, said she is impressed by Madison School Superintendent Thomas Scarice's ideas about how to prepare Madison's children not just for tests, but for life. "He says if you can't find a job, you can make a job, but you have to have the tools to think outside the box," she said.

Chang, a mom who has children at Island Avenue School and Brown Middle School, also agrees with Scarice's thinking on education. "It's important to teach children to think rather than just take tests," she said.

The moms are watching

They both said they are looking forward to staying involved in the discussion about the best way to evaluate the teachers who are helping to teach Madison's children how to think.

Scarice called the meeting Tuesday night because he, the members of the Madison Board of Education, and an advisory council of about 45 Madison teacher and administrators, have grave concerns about teacher evaluation guidelines adopted in June 2012 by the state Board of Education, in response to legislation signed in May designed largely to help 25 low-performing school districts in the state. The bill was "passed unanimously in the state House of Representatives and on a bipartisan, 28-7 vote in the Senate," according to ct.mirror.com.

Several at the meeting Tuesday said the legislation and guidelines may well be beneficial to some school districts in the state, but that, for Madison--where test scores are already high and the pressure to succeed is already intense and anxiety producing for many students--they could have a dramatic and negative effect on students' learning and teacher instruction.

Intense focus on test scores can have dire consequences for some school districts

"The intense focus on standardized test scores ignores 'whole child' development, resulting in students who are less creative, less emotionally expressive, and less passionate for learning (Grey, 2012; Moon, 2009)," says the white paper prepared by the Madison Public Schools Superintendent's Advisory Council Position Paper. "Focusing on a single, narrow measure detrimentally impacts teacher performance because it crowds out professional collaboration to address the complexity of student learning (Taubmann, 2009) ... Narrowing of curriculum is a natural consequence of a heightened focus on high-stakes testing (Nichols, Lynn, & Berliner, 2007). Essential skills, such as critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and ethical and responsible decision-making, which are the highest priorities of the Madison Public Schools, are marginalized in pursuit of higher test scores [several citations provided]. Excessive reliance on standardized student achievement data does not align with the goals and core beliefs of Madison Public Schools and the Madison community."

One Madison father, who teaches high school in another school district, said during the public comment section of the meeting Tuesday that he agreed with concerns about "data-driven instruction." 

"When you incentivize certain things you change the classroom environment," he said, adding that, in his school district, there is a big push to improve test scores. "I know that, this year, the students in my classroom are less interested. My students are less compelled to learn."

Setting up students to fail so teachers can succeed

He said he was counseled to set up pre-tests that would set students up for failure. "On the pre-tests, the students do poorly. Then, on the post-tests, they show growth," he said. "I've been teaching for eight years and now I have to set up a situation where my students have to fail for me to succeed?"

He said the "rigidity of the system" makes it difficult to create lessons that encourage creative, adaptive thinking. "We are lucky [in Madison] to have a superintendent who is pro-active, with a vision," he said.

Scarice said his vision of a school district that holds teachers accountable, while at the same time encouraging and supporting them to help nurture creative, adaptive thinking, was reinforced by a Madison Education Summit held Nov. 28 at the Madison Senior Center. Dozens of community members, including librarians, pre-school teachers, business leaders, moms and dads, coaches, town and state officials, and one nun, gathered to talk about the future of education in Madison.

Strong sense of local control, local autonomy

He said much of the discussion centered around how to prepare students for an increasingly complex world, and that many expressed a "strong sense of local control and local autonomy." The meeting ran to about 11 p.m. and by the time Scarice got home that night, he already had four emails from participants who expressed enthusiasm for the process and had additional ideas.

Scarice said his thinking on the subject is also reinforced by the historical record, which shows that public schools are often placed "in the cross-hairs" of responses to societal concerns and demands. From the time of the industrial revolution, when schools were encouraged, in part, to turn out students who would be suitable for factory work, school reform efforts have often been about more than the best way to educate children, he said. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, schools became a battle ground for civil rights. In the early 1980s, "the rising tide of mediocrity," a tag line from the report "A Nation At Risk," was the focus of discussions about education. "The roots and seeds of the legislation passed in February [in Connecticut] can be found in that report," he said. "It spawned the standardized test movement."

Don't use a snapshot when you should be using a photo album

Scarice and others at the meeting said there is a role for testing, and that it can provide a valuable "snapshot" of where schools stand at the time of testing, but Scarice said the standardized tests were never meant to evaluate individual students, or their teachers. He said, it's more appropriate to take a "photo album" approach when it comes to students and teachers, and that standardized tests are just not set up to do that.

He said the "No Child Left Behind" movement, while having admirable goals, went further down the road of "boiling down performance to one test." He said the name of the initiative, "No Child Left Behind," was almost irresistible.

"No child left behind ... who's going to vote against that?" he said. He said the initiative itself, however, created unintended consequences and was in many ways a failure.

Rigidity leads to adverse effects

"The program failed. It did not transform schools. And so 2.0 came out, 'Race To The Top,'" he said. "That pits schools one against the other." He said he has no doubt the intentions of legislators were "honest," but that the rigidity of the system as envisioned by the recent legislation in Connecticut would have adverse effects in Madison.

The formula, as currently envisioned under the guidelines developed in response to the legislation, is that 40 percent of a teacher's evaluation be based on observations of the teacher's professional practice, which Scarice termed a traditional method of teacher evaluation. Another 45 percent would be tied to student performance as measured by standardized tests. Ten percent would be based on parent/peer surveys. And five percent would be based on an evaluation of either the whole school, or student surveys.

The new evaluation process has sparked controversy statewide, according to ctmirror.org.

Process being rolled out in 16 school districts covering 50,000 teachers

The process is intially being rolled out in 16 school districts covering 50,000 teachers, including Bridgeport, Nowalk, the Capital Region Education Council [Hartford], Windsor, Windham, Waterford, Bethany/Orange/Woodbridge, Litchfield and Region 6, Columbia/Eastford/Franklin/Sterling, and Branford.

In addition to concerns about how the new process will affect teachers, teaching, and students, Scarice said it also appears it will be costly to implement. "This is not a free ride," he said. But he said the focus of the discussion Tuesday night in Madison was on the effect on teachers and teaching and what the local district should do about the proposed process.

He noted that local decisions should be made in the context of Madison's consistently high performance on test scores.

Madison consistently ranks in top ten in the state

Madison Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Anita Rutlin said after the meeting that there are 24 subtests given to 7 grade levels from grades 3 to 10. Among those 24 subtests Madison achievement ranked in the top 10 districts in the state on 18 subtests. Ridgefield did so on 17 subtests, New Canaan on 15 subtests and Redding/Regional School District 9 on 14 subtests, she said.

"Our students are also top in the state from another perspective. At each of the 7 grade levels Madison ranks in the top 10 in the state for the percentage of students attaining goal or advanced on all the subtests given at their grade level. Two districts - Madison and Ridgefield - attained that distinction," Rutlin said, following the meeting. 

Scarice also noted during the meeting that the school district has a graduation rate of about 98 percent.

Some goals cannot be measured by standardized tests

Given those numbers he said, the discussion in Madison is "are we preparing students for the world? Are they doing the right work? ... Can students put ideas into action? Can they apply what they have learned? Can students make ethical and responsible decisions?"

Those are goals that cannot be measured by standardized tests, Scarice said.

Scarice conceded that the current legislation, and guidelines, might or might not be appropriate for other school districts. But he said that was not his current concern.

More pressure on tests results leads to anxiety, not results

"My concern is the 3,400 students in this district," he said. He added that in high performing districts like Madison where expectations are high, that additional pressure on tests results will likely result in anxiety for those students, rather than sound educational outcomes, creativity, and the ability to prepare for life beyond high school. He said that his concern is that putting additional emphasis on high stakes test results will have a "corrosive" effect on Madison schools.

Paul Coppola, a social studies teacher at Daniel Hand High School, who grew up in Madison and attended Madison public schools, was a member of the Madison Public Schools Advisory Council. He said he hears people in town say that they want to see students learn by taking risks and to learn from their failures. He said people in the community also value exposure to diversity, and experiencing different perspectives inside and out of the classroom.

Coppola said parents and teachers alike want students to be able to take knowledge, whether presented in class or on Google via their cell phones, and create new knowledge. "They want authentic and purposeful lessons," he said. "We have this commitment across our community."

Commitment to keeping teachers accountable in rigorous way

The evaluation system handed down by the state is "inadequate" to the task of creating lessons that support those values in districts like Madison, he said.

Scarice said Madison is committed to making sure teachers are accountable "in a rigorous way."

Scarice said his plan is to submit notification to the state in January that Madison intends to design their own evaluation process that holds teachers accountable to a high standard, that is rigorous, that is responsive, and that relates to the research findings of the Madison Public Schools Superintendent's Advisory Council.

Community encouraged to stay involved by going to Board of Education meetings and following process

That plan will be vetted by the Board of Education and, as such, available for Madison parents and others in the community, he said. In April, with the approval of the local Board of Education, a full plan will be submitted to the state, Scarice said.

Scarice said there is no official waiver process right now, but that he is "cautiously optimistic that if we are in substantial compliance [with the goals of the legislation] that we will be successful."

State Rep. Noreen Kokoruda and state Sen. Ed Meyer, who attended the meeting Tuesday night, both said the driver behind the legislation, and guidelines, were low performing schools in the state. Kokoruda said she would follow the waiver process closely, to make sure that the needs of school districts like Madison can be addressed.

Madison moms Chang and O'Connell, white papers in hand, as they left the meeting Tuesday night, said they would be following the process as well and that they looked forward to hearing what the school district proposes.

This story was changed on Friday, Dec. 7 to correct information, and provide additional detail, about Madison's performance on standardized tests.