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Why standardized testing in our schools SUCK

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Why CSAP Sucks

By Christian Piatt

 

(Originally published in PULP)

If the ridiculous school supply and uniform bills weren’t enough to signal the beginning of school, there are plenty of other signs that the academic season is upon us: nervous-looking kids; slightly euphoric parents; bulging backpacks and the telltale crossing guards posted at strategic locations around town.

 

We also know it’s back-to-school time since we’re finally getting a glimpse of the CSAP test results from last year. The CSAPs – which stands for “Colorado Student Assessment Program” – is given to most students on most grades throughout the state, supposedly to track student progress. A love child of George Bush and his No Child Left Behind legislation, the CSAPs and similar testing batteries across the nation have drawn mixed reviews.

 

In general, the sentiment toward the tests is negative, but the problem is most folks agree we should have some sort of accountability for student achievement; the problem is that no one seems to have a clue about how to make the tests better.

 

For starters, the tests historically have compared apples to oranges, holding one third-grade class’ scores up against the third-graders that follow them the next year and so on from grade to grade. But aside from any kids who failed and had to repeat a grade, these are entirely different students, so it’s impossible to get much useful data this way.

 

Recently, the bureaucrats and administrators have wised up at least a little, and they’re now tracking cohorts. This means we get to see data from one group of students as they progress throughout their academic career. But this still has huge flaws, particularly in a highly mobile community like Pueblo. In some schools, where the mobility rate exceeds 100 percent, most of theses aren’t the same kids from beginning of year to end, let alone from one year to the next.

 

A more reasonable solution is to implement a longitudinal system that follows each individual students from kindergarten to graduation. This would require more consistency from state to state, but it’s really the only way to use the tests to tell if a particular student is where they need to be or not. 

 

Another issue is the test’s sensitivity, on two levels. First, though some strides have been made to try and make the tests culturally sensitive, there are still issues surrounding the assumption of prior knowledge, much of which comes from a middle class, primarily Anglo background. Simply put, middle class kids have seen and done more than poorer kids, which gives them an advantage over kids who may have never left their home town.

 

A second sensitivity problem is more technical, primarily regarding the higher and lower extremes of the scale. In general, all we hear about is whether or not a kid performs at or above the “proficient” level, which constitutes two of the four possible quartiles within which scores can fall. Each school can see scores in a bit more detail, but for a child who began as a non-English speaker, or as functionally illiterate, a gain of a year or more may not even create a blip on the score chart. Some concessions are made for “special needs” students, but this hardly addresses the fundamental flaw, which is a test that is akin to taking a chainsaw into surgery.

 

Finally, there’s the problem of what the tests actually measure. The testing protocols, which are timed, try to tell if a child has mastered a set of skills necessary to solve a problem, whether it is a math proof or answers at the end of a reading passage. For the kids who get the right answers, all is well, but for the rest, the tests really tell us nothing.

 

For example, say a child misses all five questions at the end of a story passage. Though we can see they got all the wrong answers, did they fail because they didn’t understand the story? Maybe they misunderstood the questions? Or perhaps the directions for what to do in the first place? Did they read too slowly to even get to the questions? Did they have so many words they could not decode in the story that they lost the story’s point? Did they lack the vocabulary to comprehend three dozen words in the first few paragraphs?

 

We have no idea.

 

That’s because these are achievement tests, which do just that: measure overall achievement. If, however, we really wanted to mind some valuable data from this effort, we should be conducting diagnostic assessments. This not only tells you where a child does well, but where, across the board, they are weak. This helps teachers target the low points so that the entire end-result can come up, and so that some problems for which kids may compensate early in their school careers don’t suddenly blow up in their faces come junior high or high school.

 

Some are calling for the whole testing concept to be trashed, which would be a mistake. The problem isn’t that we’re testing our kids; it’s that we don’t know how or why. For now, though, the CSAPs and their counterparts in others states score well below proficient. 

Posted in Blogroll, children, Columns, culture, current events, economics, education, parenting, politics, pueblo, pulp, Uncategorized, youth | No Comments »

A city is what it eats – PULP NewSpin

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

A city is what it eats – PULP NewSpin

By Christian Piatt

You can tell a lot about a place by looking at its people. There are certain things one will notice walking around town – particularly about hairstyles and wardrobe selections that seem to say, “only in Pueblo.”

But there’s another characteristic that’s a lot more disturbing; we’re fat.

A recent nationwide survey found that, once again, Colorado is the healthiest state in the county. And once again, Pueblo did little, if anything, to contribute to that. We remark about feeling as if we’re an island set adrift by the rest of the state here in Pueblo sometimes, but then something like this comes along to show us just how out of touch we really are.

And the disconnect literally can be a killer.

I spoke with Cathy Dehn, the LiveWell Pueblo Project Coordinator for Pueblo County, by phone recently about the obesity problem in Pueblo, and about what’s being done to address it.

So why does Pueblo stand alone in being so pervasively overweight in such a healthy state, and with so many natural resources seemingly at our disposal. One clear connection is poverty. Historically, when a community has a lower median income, the residents weigh more, generally due to the fact that cheaper food often isn’t the healthiest for us. But there’s more going on than just that.

We’re a sedentary community. Although we have the mountains nearby, a fantastic reservoir and some pretty decent trails around town, we don’t exercise as much as other Colorado communities. Part of this, I think, is because in the past, we haven’t had to. If you perform back-breaking work all day long tending to crops or on the line at the steel mill, you burn enough calories that working out is superfluous. So it’s not a part of the culture. But as jobs have become more automated, we’ve become less active, with no history of extracurricular activity beyond high school sports to fill the void.

Finally, there’s the matter of regional diet, which is related to the manual labor culture described above. If you’re performing hard physical labor all day, you need food that will stick to your ribs, with plenty of calories, protein and even fat to sustain you until the workday is done. And although we’ve reduced our overall expenditure of calories in an average day, the diet and portion sizes have not adjusted accordingly.

I spoke with Cathy Dehn, the LiveWell Pueblo Project Coordinator for Pueblo County by phone recently about these issues and what is being done about it.

We’re trying to slowly change the culture,” she says. “What’s happened is people are less physically active and not eating as healthy. By giving opportunities and exposure to fresh fruits, vegetables and opportunities for activity, we’re taking small steps in a longer-range goal.”

Asked if she’s seen progress toward the goal of reducing obesity in Pueblo in the several years the government has been trying to intervene, she was frank. “We haven’t yet made an impact on obesity stat,” she says, alluding to the deep cultural systems they find themselves up against. “We’re just now scratching the surface.”

All due credit to the county for trying, but the fact is you can lead a person to a treadmill, but you can’t make them walk.

For five years, we benefitted from a federal grant that funded our Steps to a Healthier Pueblo initiative. Unfortunately, the grant was not renewed, but the effects of the program remain throughout town. Most efforts focused on training schools, workplaces and health care providers about how best to address the issue in their own environments.

There are other examples of programs put into place that now have been picked up and continued by local partnerships, like the riverwalk steps program, which was started through the Steps grant, but which now is sustained by community partnerships, including the HARP Authority.

Other efforts include research, planning and publicity about increasing the walkability and bikeability of our county. Since some do not have the means to drive out to the mountains or the reservoir, we have to bring opportunities for more activity right to the neighborhoods. There are also programs emphasizing diabetes prevention, tobacco use reduction and ongoing clinics for healthcare providers.

If there’s a true frontline in the battle of the bulge, though, it’s in the schools. Decades ago, when public schools struggled to make ends meet, partnerships were forged with private vending and other foodservice companies to bring in packaged food for sale, with a portion of the revenues returning to the school coffers. Ironically, the sale of sodas, sugary snacks and even meals prepared by fast food joints, helped subsidize the athletic programs.

Now, we’re seeing the generations-long effects of such choices, but we’re so dependent on the revenues these contracts create that we’re not sure how to wean ourselves off. Unfortunately, it’s taking federal intervention in the form of phase-out plans for vending machines and fast food contracts to work our way out of the mire we created.

Fat kids become fat adults, and generally, they raise more fat kids. If we’re going to ever get the upper hand in this war, it will hinge on the battles fought for the health of our children. And the consequences reach far beyond the stigma of Pueblo as a community behind the times. Our health care services and costs suffer as a result, as does the economy as a whole.

One of the biggest challenges I see is getting economic development groups like the Chambers of Commerce and PEDCO actively on board. The problem is, they have a conflict of interest; their own members benefit from things like the school vending contracts and restaurants purveying massive amounts of comfort food we don’t need.

So what’s it going to be? Will we continue to limp along, playing the role of state whipping boy, or will we take responsibility as a community to whip our flabby asses into shape?

Originally published in PULP.

Posted in Blogroll, children, Columns, culture, current events, economics, education, parenting, politics, pueblo, pulp, young adult, youth | No Comments »

When Values Collide

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

When values collide
By Christian Piatt

If you’ve never taken the time to spend some time reflecting on the five pillars of Islam, it’s worth the effort, regardless of your religious affiliation. One particular pillar that stands out to me is Zakat, which is described as alms-giving.

All Muslims are required to donate a portion of their income to charity, both as a spiritual discipline and as a means of offering welfare for those who are less fortunate. Whereas is the Christian faith, we are encouraged to give sacrificially, Muslims see this practice of Zakat as inextricable from their foundational religious identity.

With the rampant concern about religiously-fueled terrorism in the United States since September 11, 2001, many efforts have been made by our government to cut off funding for terror cells at the source. As such, many Muslim charitable organizations are closely tracked by the FBI and CIA, and some are even “blacklisted” as untouchable.

To some degree, this is understandable. After all, if there’s money flowing from our own country into the coffers on those intent on destroying us, it makes sense to try and do something about it.

But it’s not that simple.

Some Muslim groups have asked the U.S. government to create a “white list” of approved organizations so that they can inform their community where it is safe to practice Zakat. However, government officials have declined to do so, suggesting that creating such a list would only make those charities an obvious target for terrorists to infiltrate and corrupt, once they are perceived as safe.

Some suggest this is easily remedied by giving to organizations that aren’t explicitly affiliated with Islam. However, this ignores one of the two-fold purposes of Zakat: to help those in need within the Muslim community in particular.

It seems, then, that we have two American values meeting at an impasse. Though we seek to preserve our safety and way of life, we also celebrate the value of religious freedom. So what is to be done when the premium of real, or perceived, safety infringes on such liberties?

It was Thomas Jefferson who said, “though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.” In this case, it seems the “will of the majority” is treading dangerously close to oppression.

Simply because the Muslims in America are a relatively small, silent – and these days, rightfully fearful – minority does not mean we can ignore the compromises to religious freedom our national security interests impose.

Originally printed in the August issue of PULP.

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When “Left Behind” takes on new meaning

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

When “left behind” takes on new meaning

by Christian Piatt

(Originally published in PULP)

 

The phrase “left behind” brings to mind for most people the apocalyptic religious fiction series, apparently scaring people into adhering to Christian doctrine “or else.” But for me, it raises strong feelings about what sucks the most about being a part of organized religion.

 

If there’s one word that defines the relevance of a community of faith, it’s just that: community. Sure, we can practice faith alone on a mountaintop or study it in a book, but as my wife, Amy says, a book can’t visit you in the hospital, and a mountain can’t hug you back.

 

There’s a basic human need for community that started in primitive times when we, not being the fastest, fiercest or strongest species, had to depend on one another for survival. Since then, community has remained an essential part of our social fabric, and certainly not just in religion. But in that context, community not only provides love and support, but at its best, it also stretches and challenges us to become more as part of the whole than we are on our own.

 

The hard part, especially when you commit to the community over the long term, is that you set yourself up to be left, over and again. For some, communities of faith – and, I expect, other communities too – are there simply to serve them, to accommodate them like a pair of shoes. If the fit becomes less than ideal, or if something new and exciting comes along, they split.

 

For some, dealing with the inevitable conflict that comes from being a tightly-knit, interdependent group is worse than starting fresh. So again, they walk. It’s kind of like being committed to a relationship where you’re always the one getting dumped, and never the other way around.

 

Of course, this sort of vulnerability is a part of any relationship. It’s just that the traditional values of sticking with one particular group, simply because or out of a sense of moral obligation, has changed with the increasingly dynamic nature of our culture.

 

We see it everywhere; people stay in jobs for less time than in the past, but we also get laid off more suddenly. So why do we owe a company our lifelong fidelity if they will turn on us at the next economic downturn? And sure, marriage is a nice idea, but we’ve seen enough divorce and infidelity to compromise any sense of permanence the institution held before. So it may work for us right now, but there’s always an exit clause, right?

 

In a perfect world, communities of faith would be the welcome exception to this cultural norm. When we made a covenant to one another and to the Divine to stick it out, that’s what we mean – for better or worse. But I think before we can expect others to follow in this spirit, the institutions themselves have much healing and re-creation to do from within.

 

It’s not religion’s job to accommodate, and to ensure comfort and “customer satisfaction” for all comers.  However, it is incumbent upon all who call themselves sanctuaries to offer the hope, healing, nurturing and love that allows each of us to feel we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves.

 

Over time, this mantra may become practice so that it’s something in which we can trust again. Until then, we may just have to stick together, behaving as if we get what we need from one another. Hopefully, by committing to one another, we can live into the community we imagine we might someday be.

Posted in Blogroll, church, church growth, church transformation, Columns, culture, emerging church, faith, pueblo, pulp, theology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Can you be both an atheist and a Christian?

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

I probably spend at least as much time discussing theology with people who claim atheism or agnosticism as I do with other Christians. I tend to prefer it this way.

 

For one, it challenges me to really think about and articulate what I believe and why. For another, I’d much rather have some lively dialogue with people who think differently than I do than to sit around and agree with everyone.

 

After one of these kinds of chats recently, I started wondering if someone actually could be a Christian, while also not believing in a divine being. It began as a fairly abstract intellectual exercise, but the answer I came up with actually surprised me.

 

Depending on your personal Christology, I am pretty confident that you can be both a Christian and an atheist.

 

I should explain here what I mean by Christology. There’s a sort of Christological spectrum that helps define how each person perceives Jesus. Those who focus more on the divinity of Jesus, his miraculous works the significance of the crucifixion and resurrection within their theology of salvation would have what’s called a high Christology. Those who emphasize Jesus’ humanity, his works of compassion, his teaching and his love for all of humanity would have a lower Christology.

 

Though I’m not a big fan of the connotations that “high” and “low” attach to one’s beliefs, I didn’t make up the terms. As someone who has a pretty low Christology, it feels a little bit demeaning to be considered by others to have a faith system that lingers at the bottom of the God Chart.

 

But that’s not really the point. If you consider that the lower Christology focuses not so much on divinity and more on humanity, it begins to make sense how someone could adhere to the moral teachings of Jesus, and even try to pattern their lives after how he taught and lived, without actually having to believe in God.

 

Sure, there’s the challenge of what to do about the whole praying thing, but I’ve met plenty of atheists who still meditate without any intention of communing with God. But I’ve met plenty of people who don’t consider themselves to be Christians, but who I think are very Christ-like in the way they live their lives.

 

So are they Christians? It probably depends on who you ask.

 

One thing I’ve noticed about those with a higher Christology is that they tend to limit the definition of the word “Christian” to the boundaries of their own understanding. They’ll back up their belief with Biblical scripture, but in the end, the understanding that you must accept Jesus as your personal lord and savior is the only way to be a true Christian.

 

Through the research I did for a previous book on the spirituality of young adults, I found that younger people are increasingly comfortable with recognizing Christians as anyone who conducts themselves in a Christ-like way. Though high-Christology believers will likely decry this as an erosion of basic religious principles, I think it actually offers an opportunity to open up the best of Jesus’ example and teaching to a lot of people who have felt shut out or judged by Christians.

 

Even if we maintain a high Christology, do we really need everyone to agree with us before we even have dialogue? Is it possible that there’s a both/and reality that can counter our tendency to think in either/or terms? Can I arrive at my own truth through reflection upon the life and teachings of Jesus, possibly among others, without recognizing him as divine?

 

Some will feel the need to assert absolute authority in answering this question, and that’s all right. Personally, I think I could spend the rest of my life trying to understand the essence of what I think it means to be a Christian, and still only have a dimly lit view of the whole picture. Other people, atheists included, help me understand a little bit more about my own spiritual reality every day.

 

That personal growth is way more important to me than knowing who’s right and who’s wrong.

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Lent: Celebrating the Common (from PULP’s April issue)

Friday, May 1st, 2009

I know this is a little past Lent now, but I think you might still enjoy the sentiment of this column, originally published in April’s PULP.

Lent: Celebrating the common

As some may know, this is the period known as Lent – the weeks leading up to Easter – on the Christian liturgical calendar. Lots of Protestants aren’t even familiar with it, but our church tries to recognize it as a spiritual discipline if nothing else.

There are a few things Lent is known for, namely Fat Tuesday, or Mardi Gras. The idea behind this is that, since you’re supposed to give something up in Lent to remind us of the selfless or often-called “sacrificial” love demonstrated by Jesus. This begins on the first day of Lent, which is Ash Wednesday.

Some of us may know this holiday by some embarrassing moment when we’ve gone up to a person observing Ash Wednesday and said something akin to, “dude, you have some shit on your forehead.” The tradition actually is that the palm leaves from Palm Sunday, which is the Sunday before Easter, used in worship the year before are burned and mixed with oil, then used to place a mark of the cross on a person’s forehead. This is to serve as a reminder that we all came from dust, and hence will return to dust.

Fat Tuesday, then, being the last day before this period of fasting and reflection, is the last chance to get all the naughty bits out of your system. Problem is, a hell of a lot more people observe Fat Tuesday than Ash Wednesday.

Oh well. Everybody loves a party.

I actually had a college student friend of mine say recently that Lent is her favorite time of the Christian year. Whereas days like Christmas and Easter have largely become as commercialized as Valentines or other Hallmark Holidays, Lent actually requires something of us, and causes us to search inward to discern what’s really important in our lives.

For those who like to complain that all young folks are a bunch of narcissistic self-indulgent whiners, I might suggest that a growing movement known as “neo monasticism” suggests otherwise.

Neo monasticism, which is based on the ancient lifestyle of monks, emphasizes simplicity and communal interdependence. The best example of this is the monastery in Taize, France, where more than 6,000 young people travel every summer to sleep on the floor, cook meals for one another, sing chants and pray four times every day.

No rides or movie theaters. No iPods. Not even a Chipotle for miles. It’s about as different from contemporary life as one can get without being completely off the grid. And that’s pretty much the point.

This movement, brought to the forefront during this Lenten season, celebrates the common in our lives, embracing simplicity and freeing us from the shackles of want. It may be a passing fad, but it speaks to something deeper in our culture. We may have become dependent upon constant distraction and obsessed with comfort, but when we spend even a little while reflecting on what really matters, there’s something in us that’s restless for deeper meaning.

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