Many media outlets have written articles concerning the Ohio school report cards recently released by ODE.
I can't refrain from commenting on one article in The Plain Dealer titled: "Ohio state-of-the schools report give parents questions to ask". The article includes a statement from Professor Randy Hoover of Youngstown State University that should come with a warning that it contains bias against the economically disadvantaged.
Let me explain. Sometimes good people do not realize they harbor a biased or bigoted viewpoint to explain why minority or economically disadvantaged kids are not excelling in some school districts. These conscious or even unconscious stereotypes abound and some educators come to public schools with those biases routinely reinforced by the media.
Is he really saying that affluent students are the only ones who can achieve the state minimum standard on the achievement test ? Maybe the correlation he talks about between test scores to family income is actually the correlation between low expectations of cultural bias and bigotry to low test scores.
Coined as the cultural deprivation model, educators apply their biased racial stereotypes to justify having low educational expectations of minority and economically disadvantaged kids. They project this low achievement expectation because they believe "those" students do not have the proper exposure to the same educational experiences as the "affluent suburban kids". The problem is the home and student deficits, not the school or the low expectations for these kids. Their assumption about the problem and the remedy actually become self-fulfilling.
In the well-known Psychology book, "Forty Studies That Changed Psychology", by Roger R. Hock, He explains this psychological phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecies .
"One way of describing this concept is to say that if we expect something to happen in a certain way, our expectation will tend to make it so."
He went on to explain this using a famous study in 1966 involving teachers and students age kindergarten through sixth grade. An IQ test was taken at the year to determine where the children were at before the study took place. The psychologist then gave a list of randomly selected students to the teachers, saying that they were "early bloomers".
"In other words, teachers believed that students who scored high on the test were ready to enter a period of increased learning abilities within the next year. The predictive ability of the test was also, not true."
At the end of the year, the randomly selected students were given another IQ test to see if they remained the same from the beginning of the year or not. In kindergarten students, there was a reported average of a thirty-point gain. As the age group increased, the gain decreased. Why? - because teachers and students already are in the mindset that they cannot achieve higher. The converse of this is true. When teachers who receive new students to a new system are told that the students are smart, they will treat them with special care. Thus, the opportunity to have a higher education is opened up.
Remember the movie "The Field of Dreams" - If you build it, he will come? If we have high expectations for all students - they will succeed. That is the cornerstone of NCLB. A model administrator and educator will be trained in techniques that encourage strengths and abilities and expect and produce high achievement for all children.
Dr. Zelman said it best when she responded to Professor Hoover in the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2000. "My goal is that we do not have a set of standards for poor kids and a set of standards for rich kids. We need one high-quality set of standards for all children."
Research on this subject can be found at ERIC (Education Resource Information Center), the online digital library of education research and information sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, and at Identifying and Removing Barriers to Student Achievement.
I can't refrain from commenting on one article in The Plain Dealer titled: "Ohio state-of-the schools report give parents questions to ask". The article includes a statement from Professor Randy Hoover of Youngstown State University that should come with a warning that it contains bias against the economically disadvantaged.
Let me explain. Sometimes good people do not realize they harbor a biased or bigoted viewpoint to explain why minority or economically disadvantaged kids are not excelling in some school districts. These conscious or even unconscious stereotypes abound and some educators come to public schools with those biases routinely reinforced by the media.
The Plain Dealer article states:Does any of this mean anything? Youngstown State University professor Randy Hoover, who has researched Ohio test scores for 10 years, calls the state's accountability system grossly misleading at best and grossly unfair at worst.
Hoover's reasoning: test results in Ohio correlate closely to a child's family income and other factors in the home that have little or nothing to do with what's happening in class. (Related story: Almost half of Cleveland schools flunked.)
Is he really saying that affluent students are the only ones who can achieve the state minimum standard on the achievement test ? Maybe the correlation he talks about between test scores to family income is actually the correlation between low expectations of cultural bias and bigotry to low test scores.
Coined as the cultural deprivation model, educators apply their biased racial stereotypes to justify having low educational expectations of minority and economically disadvantaged kids. They project this low achievement expectation because they believe "those" students do not have the proper exposure to the same educational experiences as the "affluent suburban kids". The problem is the home and student deficits, not the school or the low expectations for these kids. Their assumption about the problem and the remedy actually become self-fulfilling.
In the well-known Psychology book, "Forty Studies That Changed Psychology", by Roger R. Hock, He explains this psychological phenomenon of self-fulfilling prophecies .
"One way of describing this concept is to say that if we expect something to happen in a certain way, our expectation will tend to make it so."
He went on to explain this using a famous study in 1966 involving teachers and students age kindergarten through sixth grade. An IQ test was taken at the year to determine where the children were at before the study took place. The psychologist then gave a list of randomly selected students to the teachers, saying that they were "early bloomers".
"In other words, teachers believed that students who scored high on the test were ready to enter a period of increased learning abilities within the next year. The predictive ability of the test was also, not true."
At the end of the year, the randomly selected students were given another IQ test to see if they remained the same from the beginning of the year or not. In kindergarten students, there was a reported average of a thirty-point gain. As the age group increased, the gain decreased. Why? - because teachers and students already are in the mindset that they cannot achieve higher. The converse of this is true. When teachers who receive new students to a new system are told that the students are smart, they will treat them with special care. Thus, the opportunity to have a higher education is opened up.
Remember the movie "The Field of Dreams" - If you build it, he will come? If we have high expectations for all students - they will succeed. That is the cornerstone of NCLB. A model administrator and educator will be trained in techniques that encourage strengths and abilities and expect and produce high achievement for all children.
Dr. Zelman said it best when she responded to Professor Hoover in the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2000. "My goal is that we do not have a set of standards for poor kids and a set of standards for rich kids. We need one high-quality set of standards for all children."
Research on this subject can be found at ERIC (Education Resource Information Center), the online digital library of education research and information sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences, and at Identifying and Removing Barriers to Student Achievement.
7 comments:
Everything you write about is true here. I agree that students will usually rise to your expectations. Usually. Some kids just have so much going against them. Can poor students learn as well as affluent ones? Of course they can. But what poor students usually don't have are parents who will push them along and have high expectations. I think what parents expect is extremely important to how students do in school.
Parents are the first "teachers" for their children. Their support and high expectations are very important. But no amount of support and expectation can offset a school district who simply decides your child shouldn't be able to reach academic excellence just because of your income or your zip code. I have talked with many lower income families who desire great things for their kids, who love and support their kids, and who are frustrated because the teacher doesn't have high academic and social expectations for their kids.
I find it abhorrent when supposedly educated people label statements of fact "racist." It's obvious the author confuses correlation with causation; There is a strong correlation between murder rate and ice cream sales but that doesn't mean ice cream sales cause more murders. Unless there is more to what the professor said than what is quoted on the post, this post has seriously diminished the respect I had for this blog.
I'd like to weigh in in this post. The purpose of this blog is to inform as well as to provoke discussion. At no time do we expect that everyone will agree with our point of view.
Some additional information: In Ohio, our system of assessments and the accompanying accountability system focus on minimum standards. The standard for proficient is reaching an achievement level that represents "just barely proficient" and an excellent rating represents 75% of students performing at the "just barely" proficient standard. For better or worse, Ohio is holding districts accountable for all students meeting a pretty low standard. The current standards are not reflective of our ultimate goal of helping all children achieve their full potential. These standards are a starting point only.
While Ohio has made progress, there are persistent achievement gaps for some minorities, English language learners, economically disadvantaged students, and students with disabilities. We must acknowledge the gap and work to close it. That's not quite the same as suggesting that some students cannot meet minimum standards. The success of Ohio's Schools of Distinction and School of Promise demonstrates that special populations can and do indeed meet and exceed Ohio's performance standards.(Check these out on the ODE website www.ode.state.oh.us)
It's also important that Ohio, unlike most states, includes a projected growth measure for AYP and value-added assessment for ratings purposes. These tools allow Ohio to look at the growth in achievement over time in addition to meeting a static standard. These measures prove that students from all groups and demographics can and do demonstrate improvement of achievement levels. Ohio's variety of tools and research seemed to be left out of the professor's analysis.
I have very high expectations for all students in my classroom. I teach in an affluent community and most of my students learn as expected. I have found through experience that most of the students who fall behind have parents that don't expect much. This is just my experience.
There can be no doubt that family/parental expectations play a major role in improving student achievement and maintaining high expectations.
Parents are the first "teachers" for their children. Their support and high expectations are very important. But no amount of support and expectation can offset a school district who simply decides your child shouldn't be able to reach academic excellence just because of your income or your zip code.
The concluding statement is false, a misreading of reality, and simply a red herring. Districts don't decide such things, teachers are not that unthinking and inconsiderate. This simply does not happen.
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