From the article...
The Ohio Department of Education agrees that the trend is clear. Chris Woolard, the department's head of accountability, said showing that pattern is a goal of the report cards.
"These are aspirational measures that are pointing out a problem," Woolard said. "Not all kids are leaving high school ready for college or work."
By showing districts how many kids are not meeting the state's goals, they now know what they have to work on, Woolard said.
To be fair, the statistics suggest that the problem is poverty, what needs to be worked on is a remedy for poverty. Are Mr. Woolard and the ODE suggesting that continued excessive assessment is necessary in order to point out who is poor? The IRS already does that. Or, worse yet, is he suggesting that my new role as a public school teacher is to somehow remediate the effects of poverty on a child's life? Is that what I know I have to work on?
I consider myself a fairly successful teacher, but I question the expectation here.
What we've illustrated once again with a hefty round of high stakes assessments: Poor kids score poorly, affluent kids score far better.
Again, we should consider the implications when it comes to all high stakes use of this data...
the 3rd grade reading guarantee
High School graduation tests
ACT/SAT scores
School Ratings
District Ratings
Teacher Ratings
Let's remember we're measuring poverty. Since we've already done that, let's abandon a few of these meaningless assessments and their high stakes punishments.
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