The agenda (which doesn't tell us much) is here.
The livestream is here.
Martinez: setting new benchmarks for proficiency, lower to zero doesn't meet (I think)
he is just saying this aloud; it isn't shown or written out as to what he's saying...this is really hard to follow
Rob Curtin:
districts had several more weeks to give test
shortened grade 3-8 assessment and took one session instead of two
Grade 10 the same
remote administration option
call out for districts and assessment staff for their flexibility in this
Board has modified competency determination of classes of '20-'23
over a million assessments, 85% in person, 99% received a valid result
1% did not; some small number of classrooms being reviewed and grade 8 remote science was not able to be scored due to a contractor error
participation remained strong across; all at 90% or higher (save 89% at math grade 10); younger grades 97% in gr.3-5 in both subjects
Typically in 97% in grade 8 and under; 95% grade 10, so a dip, but still strong
Someone asked if there were higher pockets of non participation
Moriarty: 89% in math grade 10: harbinger of dropping out?Curtin: not as yet, provide ample opportunity for students to take the test to meet the competency determination
stacked bars of achievement; vertically within each grade an achievement level; horizontally comparing across grades
Blue bar of achievement in 2019: orange above the blue line in grades 3-8 is the drop in students meeting or exceeding expectations compared to 2019
2021 grade 10 OUTPERFORMED 2019 in ELA (so no orange over the bar!)
West asks if test was shorter, confirms it was not in grade 10
Curtin: do have "tale of two subjects" as we look at math
Decreases in ELA for sure, "to a more significant degree in math"
concern with amount of red "not meeting expectations"
grade 10 did experience a decrease in math as compared to ELA
science drop more consistent with ELA than math
15% drop in meeting or exceeding expectations in grades 3-8
grade 10 7%
West: comfort in comparison?
Curtin: "what gives me comfort is numbers"
speaks of the numbers of tests given and results
and I missed a section here...augh
Curtin: looking at achievement gap
math change in achievement gap: "actually have a little bit of a narrowing"
"all in all, we end up with certainly declining results" but while we might have feared increasing achievement gaps, that isn't what happened (that last is totally paraphrase)
Riley says he sees recovery as a several year project
Morton: what is social emotional impact on students and on schools
"if we could get such data, that would be helpful"
Riley: "I don't think there is such data."
Morton: "then maybe there should be"
Morton: should focus on alternative assessments, "I'd like us to be sure that we're spending the same amount of resources on alternative assessments"
and then an alarm sounded and the floor? building? was ordered to be evacuated via an automated voice
Hills: wanted to make a comment "there's no perfect place on the agenda to make it"
Haven't looked at individual assessments,
MOU and work that DESE wants to be able to do in Boston
"systemic and systematic and structural problems" in Boston Public Schools
"more skeptical now than I was a year and a half ago"
Don't know how you're going to address deep and wide options "without considering all options including receivership"
"beginning to feel complicit"
"not another day that goes by without another Boston Globe article that...amps my skepticism up a notch"
"I just want to raise this issue publicly, not just privately"
Riley notes it is "not on the agenda today" but hears concerns and notes "there is a process"
"Whenever we talk about neighborhood and school segregation, they really go hand in hand," Owens said. "There's really a feedback loop, and it's often framed as, we can never have integrated schools while we have segregated neighborhoods, but the flip side is true, as well. As long as schools are unequal and linked to neighborhoods, that's going to play a big role in neighborhood segregation."
The study—which was authored by Edward Morris, a sociologist at the University of Kentucky, and Brea Perry, a sociologist at Indiana University—concludes that school suspensions account for roughly one-fifth of the white-black achievement gap. “Particularly for African American students in our data, the unequal suspension rate is one of the most important factors hindering academic progress and maintaining the racial gap in achievement,” Morris and Berry write, describing discipline patterns as an example of “hidden inequality embedded within routine educational practices.” During the 2011-12 school year, black children accounted for 16 percent of the U.S. student population but 32 percent of the students suspended and 42 percent of those expelled, according to Education Department data ; nationwide, black students are suspended at roughly three times the rate as their white counterparts.What's also fascinating (and worrying) is there is evidence that suspension has an impact on the achievement of the student body--even those who haven't been suspended.
For gr. 3-8, Wulfson: roughly 1/3 of districts are sticking w/MCAS (which will incl a bit of #PARCC) #MAEdu
— Mary Ann Stewart (@MAStewartMA) January 13, 2016
From Mary Ann Stewart in an assessment subcommittee for the Board of Ed...find(s) growing gaps between children from high- and low-income families in college entry, persistence, and graduation. Rates of college completion increased by only four percentage points for low-income cohorts born around 1980 relative to cohorts born in the early 1960s, but by 18 percentage points for corresponding cohorts who grew up in high-income families.From the Times article:
The University of Michigan study, by Susan M. Dynarski and Martha J. Bailey, looked at two generations of students, those born from 1961 to 1964 and those born from 1979 to 1982. By 1989, about one-third of the high-income students in the first generation had finished college; by 2007, more than half of the second generation had done so. By contrast, only 9 percent of the low-income students in the second generation had completed college by 2007, up only slightly from a 5 percent college completion rate by the first generation in 1989.In the Stanford study, which looked at standardized test scores:
As the Times correctly notes (and illustrates with a chart), this has been happening at the same time that achievement gaps between white children and children of color have been substantially narrowing.The achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier.
“The pattern of privileged families today is intensive cultivation,” said Dr. Furstenberg, a professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.Add that appropriate pre-natal and VERY early childcare, and we might start to get somewhere. The cupboard isn't bare, after all.
The first 10 states to receive the waivers are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Tennessee. The only state that applied for the flexibility and did not get it, New Mexico, is working with the administration to get approval, a White House official told the AP.Now to see what that means on the ground...
...under the waiver that Massachusetts will recieve, the 100 percent proficiency rule will disappear. In its place, the state is setting a requirement that local schools must cut gaps of achievement among students of different races and other backgrounds in half by 2017.
