The principal of Rocky River Middle School in Ohio is sorry.
His school made AYP, earned an “excellent” rating from the state, and passed the 2008 Ohio Achievement. But principal David Root gave Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett a remarkable two-page, single-spaced apology, addressed to students, staff and citizens of Rocky River, detailing the cost of those accomplishments. Among the things Root is sorry for:
- That he spent thousands of tax dollars on test materials, practice tests, postage and costs for test administration.
- That his teachers spent less time teaching American history because most of the social studies test questions are about foreign countries.
- That he didn’t suspend a student for assaulting another because that student would have missed valuable test days.
- For pulling children away from art, music and gym, classes they love, so they could take test-taking strategies.
- That he has to give a test where he can’t clarify any questions, make any comments to help in understanding or share the results so students can actually learn from their mistakes.
- That the integrity of his teachers is publicly tied to one test.
- For making decisions on assemblies, field trips and musical performances based on how that time away from reading, math, social studies and writing will impact state test results.
- For arranging for some students to be labeled “at risk” in front of their peers and put in small groups so the school would have a better chance of passing tests.
- For making his focus as a principal no longer helping his staff teach students but helping them teach test indicators.
“We don’t teach kids anymore,” Root, a 24-year veteran principal, tells the paper. “We teach test-taking skills. We all teach to the test. I long for the days when we used to teach kids.”
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To Principal Root,
Sir, you are a hero!
Last August I resigned from a high school near Seattle after 36 years in the classroom. Your article parallels my experience. I’m certain the problem you address is everywhere. What a brilliant, courageous way to get the message out! Expect some grief from the superintendent or the local school board, but you rocked the boat just right. Hard to argue with your success. Bravo! Coincidentally, I went to Bay High (1966) right next door to Rocky River.
Fred Strine
In an age of PR ruling whether a school is deemed successful or not, this principal found quite a unique way to make the system work for him, even after the fact. It seems in our single serving fast paced society, the quick facts, quick read or download cements the opinion of the average tax payer, parent, citizen, etc. AYP and its counterparts are statistical benchmarks that cause educational systems to jump through expensive hoops to translate learning (a truly holistic process) into a cold, hard baseline with little meaning. Perhaps Principal Root has used creative teaching skill to help those in Ohio learn the value of education, not just meeting standards.
Is this guy wonderful or what?!?!
We all probably have our favorite in regard to his great way of expressing himself but my favorite is the following:
“He loves working with 6th, 7th and 8th graders.
“I have a strong compassion for the puberty stricken,” he joked.”
Just wrong, wrong, wrong. Hero? Wonderful? How about Liar, Idiot?
1)His school district has always tested students every year. Now, they test them on the state standards (with public input). No extra cost for having students assessed on what they are supposed to be learning as opposed to some pseudo IQ test like the Iowa.
2)Ohio standards focus on different things at different years. If he directed teachers not to teach American history content HE did them a disservice not the system.
3)If you didn’t suspend a student you do owe the community an apology and you should be disciplined. State testing policy does not make you an idiot, your graduate training probably did that.
4)Anyone with half a brain knows that with content-rich tests, test-taking strategies are almost a waste of time. Shame on you for pursuing a poor strategy and then blaming educational accountability.
5)You can and should share the results with students. A detailed report actually goes home to the student’s family.
6)WRONG, Ohio has a value-added system in place now to measure progress associated with a year’s schooling.
7)What do you think your job is? Shouldn’t reading, math, history, and science take priority over assemblies?
8)You are not required to label any students, YOU decided to do that, you ARE required to intervene with students who need help to reach mastery. What, is it better for their self-esteem to pretend they are reading at grade level than to offer intervention?
9)Your job is to support teachers in teaching students - what are they teaching them? They are supposed to be teaching them state standards, created by the state with community input, communicated to all involved, and assessed by a test. Would you feel better if teachers taught their students whatever they wanted to? There is no teaching unless you can show evidence of learning.
David Root is exactly what is wrong with American public education. The columnist that printed this story originally is emblematic of how the debate is perverted in the public mind - anyone can go and download a copy of the tests Root laments, they will find very good, content-rich questions that can only be answered by students that have been well-taught, that can write essays, synthesize information, and then show their mastery. This is not a low-level memorization test! Root doubtless pines for the days when teachers could teach anything they pleased and their was no accountability for learning until application for college. Pitiful!
After calling out “liar. liar, liar,” aren’t you supposed to say “pants on fire.”? I don’t know how we’re supposed to have an adult exchange unless you follow the rules. I thought conservative respected tradition.
To “redneckprof:” Could you post a link to where you can download the copies of the tests? California releases very few of their test questions, and discourages (forbids?) discussion of unreleased questions by teachers.
Rachel:
Here is a link to released materials for the Ohio tests. Ohio has done a much better job recently, after being the only state that came out with statewide tests before creating state standards. Coming very late to the party, Ohio has created (bought) much better assessments.
http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=1070&ContentID=7479&Content=52396
John Thompson:
Where I come from, it would be “britches on fire”, and my apologies for my incivility, but it was the second time that day I had read that article. The original newspaper article included more mendacity, like giving up 8 instructional days for testing - most students had 2 mornings of the school year utilized for testing, he took every day that any student (Senior, Kindergarten, Middle school) had testing and led the reader to believe that every student had that many days lost - like I said, that’s a big fib.
I have a line by line rebuttal of the letter here:
http://jaypgreene.com/2008/07/28/when-sorry-means-jaccuse/
I’m sorry the principal sets such a poor example to his students.
Let’s try: A: “My mother dies in a car accident yesterday”. B: “Oh, I’m so sorry”. Thwere’s no assertion of responsibility, here. In no sense is this an apology. If the principal intends this expression of regret as opposition to his employers’ policy, he can honestly resign.
I’m sorry government schools put con artists like this in supervisory positions.
I am a teacher in rr and cannot disagree more with the Dr….. I teach in the elementary school and can say that everyday i am driven by teaching my students a love of learning and how to recognize and use their strengths. I find the state indicators a wonderful guide in how to ensure we provide a strong foundation for success in life long learning. But there is an aspect where your creativity and passion are reflected, in how you present and motivate your students to learn the material. By teaching your students to problem solve and work cooperatively,as well as give them the basic fundamentals you are not teaching to the test! Like it or not we do need to be accountable. Its too bad many teachers view teaching as test prep.. sad, sad, sad. Maybe you need to question where your passion lies if your goal for the year is being ready for the test. In my class look at one practice test a week before and talk about the confusing language. Otherwise their authentic learning is definitely enough for success.
What I always find quite interesting is that few people actually look at the sample test questions. I’ve yet to find a state test that expects anything more than a trivial level of understanding to achieve proficiency. Ohio is no different. In our state, schools get “High Performing” ratings by getting most of their kids over this minimal hurdle. As you know, this is extremely easy to do in high SES areas. These tests, however, say nothing about quality education. So why is there so much dislike for trivial tests? Good schools should laugh at these tests.
I looked at the released test items for Ohio’s 6th grade math test. They are trivial questions. Here are a few:
Item 2. Similar Triangles
Item 3. Number pattern
Item 6. Simplify 10 - 4/.5 + 4 to find its value
Item 8. A percentage of a whole using pie segments
Item 9. The student has to answer what information he/she needs to cover a floor with tiles. No calculations need to be done.
Item 11. A 3D cube visualization problem.
This is a straight reflection of Everyday Math that so many in the education field love. No special preparation should be necessary. These questions are supposed to reflect the silly critical thinking concepts that ed schools love so much. So what’s the problem? What’s the complaint? Schools get to teach their fuzzy ideas and the tests are a very simple reflection of these fuzzy ideas, but they still complain about teaching to the test. It’s all quite incredible. They have it all, but they still complain.
When experts in mathematics complain about low expectations and bad curricula, schools start talking about higher-order thinking as if they (with no knowledge of what real world math is) have something better. Mathematicians and engineers are left scratching their heads over what on earth they are talking about. They have redefined math and they even have their own tests. They still complain. If they can’t get kids to pass these tests with plenty of time left over for whatever other fluff they want to do, then something is very seriously wrong.
What an incredible and sad admission on the part of this principal.
It’s great to read Redneckprof’s analysis of Principal Roots article. (It leaves me with a different view of rednecks:). When I read the article I thought, “Here we go again…more excuses and juxtaposing by administrators who entice the public to join in the anti-NCLB or accountability hysteria, and who all too often present as if taking a test, which is virtually synonymous with going to school, is akin to dying. It is also great to see a teacher, rrteacher, who is clearly comfortable in her own “teachers skin” and sees the whole picture. It seems that she’s got the notion that if you just teach the children what they need to know and be able to do grade-by-grade, the proficiency will come. Problem is all too many teachers are teaching disabled and all too many school staffers are quick to label a child at risk and/or disabled. Look at the scurry across the nation as administrators and educators, even doctors of education, scramble to figure out how to educate children. What in the world happened along the way to quality education…and Americans still rank very low on the global scale of academic achievement despite it all. So now that NCLB and its accountability measures uncovered the nation’s “closeted education nasties” we have to whitewash it rather than face it head on for what it is. That’s what this article indicates to me…more whitewashing.
The standards indicate what a student should know and be able to do…year by year. Perhaps we should test what teachers should be able to know and be able to do to ensure that great teachers are paired with students who need them. Hurray to rrteacher, I pray for more like you on the scene.
I wonder what the principals subgroup data looks like. In my school district, our blue-ribbon schools have made AYP prior to and since NCLB of 2001, despite the horrific test results for minority and disabled children. It’s easy to teach children who easily learn and would probably do so if you stuck them in a closet with a book and computer. How about writing an article where AYP is determined in, let’s say, the year 2010 by whether your subgroups are proficient or not. That would have allowed school districts across the nation time to address the achievement gap…nine years into building in AYP as an accountability measure. Students are tested up the ying/yang and they being early in their academic life, of which the results are most blatant in academic tracking. The state standardized tests are the screaming wheel that’s getting the attention, while all those hundreds of other tests are truly determining one’s academic progression and destiny.
Thank you redneckprof for spouting the truth of the matter and encouraging people to think about what they’re reading. Please speak on this matter as often as you can, you’re insight is valuable.
I’ll get down from my soapbox now.
OMG Tests!
Well Canadian provinces have been doing provincial achievement tests for like over two decades. Not only Grade 12 but for at least two or more other grades. In Alberta for instance Grades 3, 6, 9 and 12’s must do their exams. While 3, 6, 9 are not officially counted for a part of final mark it is up to principal to decide that. In our school Grade 3 PAT -Provincial Ach Test- was worth 10% of the final and Gr 6 was 20% and Gr 9 was worth 30%. For Grade 12 it is officially worth 50%. School gives 50% and so does the government. It makes schools, educators, students and even parents accountable for these results. I think it is money well spent. Without that every school had their own standard and some LOW SES areas teachers didn’t care about input think about it a bit. We might be moving testing fro each grade with computers. AND why not. By the way I am a principal of K-12 school and NO I am not sorry. Children go to school to have an education not to have fun. They do that in evenings and weekends. Believe me they do have a lot of fun. Why else there are only 13% university bound, 17% college bound 38% getting gr 12 and 32% NOT getting it. IN ALBERTA ANYWAY!
And what about the fine and performing arts he said he needed to neglect because of time constraints?