Date: Fri 06-Mar-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: MICHEL

Quick Words:

schools-report-cards

Full Text:

Student Assessment: Is It Accurate Or Not?

BY MICHELE HOGAN

It's report card time again.

Anxiety provoking or elating, report cards evoke strong reactions in students

and parents alike.

Parents expect to find out just how well their children are doing in school.

But teachers at Sandy Hook School raised concerns that report cards are not

fully and accurately summarizing student achievement.

First grade teachers there have come up with a more detailed performance

assessment to go with the report card, which helps define exactly what the

student knows and what they should be learning.

Some teachers throughout the district are starting to expect students to take

an increasingly active role in self-assessment -- to take charge of their own

learning.

Report cards have barely changed in Newtown in over a decade, although

curriculum has changed significantly.

Some classes that children attend every week are not mentioned in the report

card. Children go to specialists in art, music, physical education and library

on a weekly basis, yet the current report card entirely omits these areas of

study.

In the report card used in the early 1980s, students were graded for

participation and effort in these subjects.

Spelling has also changed. In the 1980s' report card there was one mark for

spelling. In the current report card there are three. One of them is for

"weekly tests." But kids are not given weekly spelling tests in most

classrooms in the district any more.

(Weekly spelling tests were dropped from the curriculum because it turned out

that the words children spelled correctly on the spelling tests would often be

spelled incorrectly in daily usage.)

Dissatisfied

When the Gordon Black Survey was administered in October of 1997, each school

had the option of including its own questions to students, parents and

teachers in their school.

Sandy Hook School asked about the report card.

Although teachers expressed concern about the effectiveness of report cards,

parents and students were reasonably satisfied.

Teachers must collapse a great deal of information on each student to a

pre-printed form, which many Sandy Hook teachers found to be ineffective in

communicating student achievement.

When teachers were asked if "The report card enables me to communicate student

achievement effectively," only seven percent responded with "always."

Forty-four percent said "rarely."

One teacher in ten said that the report card "never" enables them to

communicate student achievement effectively.

Alternate Assessment

Throughout the district, there are teachers who are having students keep

portfolios of their work.

Portfolios provide a more valid assessment of student ability than letter

grades, and they are particularly helpful if a child moves to a new school

district.

Portfolios show examples of the child's work, but by itself, it does not

answer parents' questions about how their child compares to others.

A letter grade gives parents a better idea of how well their child is doing,

but does little to indicate strategies the child should follow to improve.

Reading is such a critical skill that the first grade teachers at Sandy Hook

School decided to add a performance-based assessment to the standard report

card.

This assessment details exactly where children are in their reading

development in 23 categories.

Teachers can then suggest strategies to parents for helping their child take

their next steps.

Jacky McMahon, first grade teacher at Sandy Hook School, provides parents with

a list of questions that would be good to ask a child who is having trouble

reading a word.

Depending on if the child needs help with knowing the sounds the letters make,

or with thinking about what word might make sense in the story, different

questions from the list are recommended.

The performance based assessment may feel natural for teachers, but parents

are given a full page explanation of the "language arts performance-based

assessment grid" just to help them understand it.

It involves parents and captures reading assessment in more detail than the

current report card alone, but parents do have to work at it.

Should the report card be changed to incorporate this amount of detail?

Sandy Hook School parents and students were asked about the report card in

October (which was before the first grade parents had a chance to see the new

performance grid). Most parents and students reported they were already

satisfied with the old report card.

In the Gordon Black Survey, most Sandy Hook students said they "always"

understand how well they are doing in school by their report card, and most

parents thought they always or usually understood.

With the students, 52 percent said "always," 33 percent usually, 13 percent

sometimes, and only just over 1 percent said "rarely" or "never."

When answering "My child's achievement is clearly communicated through the

report card," 36 percent of the parents said "always"; 38 percent said

usually; 19 percent said sometimes, and less than 7 percent said "rarely."

Robert Kuklis, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, said that "what parents

have seen, they understand.

"Is it [the current report card] the best way of capturing student learning?

No. But it is a tool. If you begin to change that, parents will naturally say

`What does that mean?'

"You are not just changing reporting, you are changing culture. You are saying

`this is what learning means in this school, for your child.'

"I want to be sure that we know how to address those questions -- student

achievement and how to communicate it, before we make changes.

It will be a major move when we do it."

Dr Kuklis continued, "We may have more informal discussions to get a dialogue

going [among teachers and parents] but for now, there are greater priorities."

One related priority is a new initiative emphasizing student participation in

assessment.

Self-Directed Learning

In many upper elementary classes and middle school classes, students are

encouraged to take an active role in teacher-parent conferences.

Teachers still prepare the standard report card, but students are expected to

assess their own learning as well.

Dr Kuklis said that with self-directed learning, students are expected to

analyze their own work, recognize their strengths and weaknesses and notice

where improvements are needed.

This can apply to daily classroom work, school projects or additional

communications with parents and teachers at report card time.

Board of Education member Peggy Ulrich-Nims said she regularly encourages

self-direction with the students she teaches.

She said it is motivating, not only for situations where a child needs to

catch up, but also for enrichment.

She said that sometimes a student who has a strong interest in a particular

topic will include plans to continue to study it in more depth in the future.

Dr Kuklis said that he is asking teachers in the district to send him examples

of self-directed learning by the beginning of April.

He wants to initiate a dialogue about self-directed learning within the

schools, and review exemplary examples of the practice.

He said "self-directed learning is not taught in a lesson....The teacher

provides a framework so students can self-assess."