Motivation Matters

Here's a story from The Seattle Times that tackles an important question: Does standardized testing motivate students? This year, on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, students passed in much higher numbers than predicted.

"The kids rose to the occasion," [said one superintendent]. "I don't know what else to say. I was just absolutely blown away."

Of course, this was not the case with all students, and some education organizations, including the Washington Education Association, don't believe that WASL scores should determine whether a student can graduate. Still, there are plenty of students and teachers who believe the test does motivate kids to raise the bar on their schoolwork.

After reading the article, it seems to me like the students who were motivated to do better by the WASL were those who were on the cusp of passing, while students who had trouble in school and didn't think a passing score was in reach were further discouraged by the test.

What do you think? Do tests have the power to motivate students? Or do they put too much pressure on kids and end up squelching motivation levels? Does it depend on the student? And if so, is there a way to provide a standardized test that takes that into account?

Posted by Katie Ash at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This story, "Researchers Propose NAEP Look Beyond Academic Measures," by Education Week's Kathleen Kennedy Manzo is about a new report written for the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, which says that the National Assessment of Educational Progress should measure more than just basic academic skills. The report claims that the assessment should expand to include eight goals: "basic academic skills, critical thinking, social skills and work ethic, readiness for citizenship, physical and emotional health, appreciation of arts and literature, and preparation for work."

There's an interesting discussion forming in the comments, directly linked to student motivation. One commenter (New Teacher Network) says, "What really matters is the motivation, skills and aptitudes of young people going forward. Those are things that can be cultivated and measured and should be." But another (The Principal) asks, "How in the world do you MEASURE motivation, citizenship, emotional health, social skills, work ethic, and other such subjective measures?"

I tend to agree that these factors should be measured in some way, but I'm not 100% convinced that it's the responsibility of NAEP to do so. But perhaps it is--after all, NAEP has been dubbed "The Nation's Report Card," which implies that it looks at education as a whole. And, of course, student motivation plays a huge part in education.

What do you think? Should the assessments be expanded to include measures for things like student motivation? And if so, how should that be measured?

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, I read an essay published in the Hoover Digest, written by Diane Ravitch. In the essay, Ravitch, whose well-defined ideas on education you can find on her Bridging Differences blog, says that we are quick to blame teachers for low international test scores and poorly performing schools, but we rarely point to the students and their "slacker" attitude towards school when thinking about reform. It's really an excellent essay, and I highly recommend that you read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt just for reference's sake:

Next time there is a conference about the state of American education--or the problems found in each and every school district--why don't we take a hard look at why so many of our students are slackers? Why don't we look at the popular culture and its effects on students' readiness to apply themselves to learning? Why don't we appraise the role models of "success" who surround our children in the press? Why don't we ask how often our children see models of success who are doctors, nurses, educators, scientists, engineers, and others who enable our society to function and who contribute to our common good?

The idea that an overarching anti-intellectual societal attitude has something to do with why kids aren't motivated to do well in school also came up in this post about a dip in the number of students reading for pleasure. One reason kids may be reading less, suggested one commenter, is because there's no cultural validation for reading books. Ravitch takes it a step further by implying that not only is there no cultural incentive to read books, but there's no societal validation for studying in general.

I'm no sociologist, but it seems to me that Ravitch is on to something. In American media, who is glorified more often: Movie stars or engineers? Pro-sports players or brain surgeons?

I don't think you can point to any one entity as an explanation for such a complicated issue, but I can't help but wonder: How do those kinds of role models affect the way our kids learn and how hard they're willing to study? Is society at least partly to blame for the lack of motivation in our students? And if so, how do we go about changing that? Do other countries have similar problems, or is this specifically an issue in the United States?

Posted by Katie Ash at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I can only imagine the whining that ensued when students in 10 Massachusetts schools were told that their school day would stretch from a 6-hour schedule to an 8- or 9-hour day. But the results are in, and according to this article in the Boston Globe, it's working.

The students in schools with longer days scored higher on the MCAS--Massachusett's state-wide standardized test--in math, English, and science across all grade levels than students in schools with a normal schedule, according to a report released on Friday. It makes sense to me that being in school for a longer amount of time would increase students' test scores, but what is more surprising is how schools are making use of the additional 2 or 3 hours.

From the article, it seems like most teachers aren't using the extra time to cram in more information--instead, they're adding in hands-on activities to reinforce the curriculum and explore topics more fully. Also, a lot of schools are giving kids a chance to take electives, like art and sports activities, which have been squeezed out of the schedule because of time constraints, say the principals.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what is boosting achievement for these schools, but I'd be willing to bet that at least part of it has to do with motivating students through creative, engaging activities, and giving kids a chance to relax and explore non-academic subjects that interest them.

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Education Week's Debra Viadero has written a fascinating piece about 'stereotype threat,' the tendency for students to underperform when faced with situations that might confirm negative stereotypes about their social group.

Since 1995, stereotype threat has been documented in more than 200 studies for many different situations and social groups, Ms. Viadero points out.

Have you seen this behavior manifesting itself in your schools? If yes, how so? And what should educators do to encourage kids to look beyond stereotypes?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Education Week writer Lesli Maxwell is spending quite a bit of time in New Orleans this school year as she tracks the progress of Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology. She is filing special online-only dispatches about the school's efforts to raise student achievement.

The latest dispatch, "Building Skills, Rebuilding a Home," looks at week five of the school year, when student progress reports were being sent home to parents.

This story is all about motivation. And it's a good read. So check it out.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If federal law doesn’t ensure that schools and districts report student achievement data to the public, maybe threat of a lawsuit will. Public Advocates is banking on it. The San Francisco-based non-profit law firm has filed suit against California's Oakland Unified, and sent warning letters to school officials in eight other districts, after finding their school report cards were inadequate, according to this story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Public Advocates reviewed the report cards issued by 20 school districts across the state, and concluded that just one complied with the accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.

At least one local superintendent told the Union-Tribune that he was unaware that his district's report cards did not meet requirements, and that the problem would be remedied.

Are your report cards meeting the minimal standard for informing the public about your school's progress? What feedback are you getting from parents and community members about your school report cards?

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Japan is known far and wide for maintaining a rigorous and effective public education system. But a significant number of students are less than enamored with it. A new report from the country's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology shows that the number of students refusing to attend school is rising for the first time in five years.

The Japan Times reports in this story that "a record 138,696 elementary and junior high school students were absent from school for at least 30 days without good reason during the school year that ended in March."

That's a minute percentage of the younger students, but about 3 percent of adolescents are abandoning schooling in a country where education is highly valued and viewed as the only road to prosperity.

The report lists a number of reasons absentees gave for staying away, including delinquency, bullying, relationship and mental health issues, and apathy.

Several years ago the government began instituting significant curriculum reforms to address concerns that schools were not preparing students to succeed in an economy that rewards innovation and creativity. I was there on assignment to report on the changes—which included a 30 percent reduction in content, introduction of integrated courses, and elimination of the time-honored tradition of Saturday school. They were prompted, in part, by a floundering economy and concerns that too many students were becoming more stressed and despondent. Surveys at the time had shown that about half of students did not enjoy school or see the purpose in studying hard.

The changes were controversial, and some parents began sending their children to cram schools to ensure they were learning the essentials. But there was also a sense that focusing on developing the whole student would also have its benefits.

Alas, some cities and towns have rolled back those reforms, citing declining test scores and concerns among parents that their children were not being properly prepared for university exams and careers.

I wonder if the reforms—or the move back to the traditional curriculum—had any effect on students' satisfaction or dissatisfaction with school.

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is the season for school report cards, and I’ve seen a number of news clips about student progress and overall school performance on state tests reported under the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

But alongside the coverage of test results, a parallel story line is playing out in many places. Cheating seems to be on the rise, or at least reports and allegations of it. Some observers have noted that with higher stakes comes a greater propensity to cheat on tests. And with the threat of school reconstitution, staff firings, and student retention linked to test scores, the stakes are pretty high.

Last month, the Dallas Morning News, which has conducted an extensive investigation of state test scores over the past year, found new evidence of cheating in some schools. In this news story, reporter Joshua Benton describes the case of Forest Brook High School. The newspaper uncovered suspicious patterns in the school’s test scores over the past two years in an analysis that led to a state investigation. The Texas Education Agency concluded that there was not enough evidence that cheating was involved in the school’s impressive test results.
As Benton reports, however, “the school’s scores collapsed” this year when state monitors “watched over every stage of the testing process in an attempt to prevent any potential misdeeds.”

Similar reports have surfaced in California and other states.

Across the pond, officials in the United Kingdom are dealing with similar issues, as reported today by the BBC, which has been conducting its own investigation.

“Cheating by teachers is so extensive that Chris Woodhead, the former head of the education standards watchdog OFSTED, says the league tables used by parents to differentiate between schools have become unreliable,” this BBC story reports.

The adults aren’t the only ones feeling the pressure. Students, too, are turning to cheating to ensure good grades.

The Plymouth-Canton Community Schools, a middle- class district outside of Detroit, decided this month to ban cell phones in classrooms to help head off cheating. Other districts across the United States have already taken that step. Many also require students to have their school assignments screened by software programs that are designed to identify plagiarized materials.

Is cheating an unintended but inevitable consequence of a high-stakes testing environment?

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Linda Perlstein is getting a lot of attention this week with the release of her second book, this one about the impact of testing and accountability on an elementary school in suburban Maryland. “Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade” chronicles the success of Tyler Heights Elementary, a Title I school in Annapolis, in boosting students’ test scores in math and reading.

The veteran journalist’s first book, "Not Much Just Chillin’: The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers," gave an eye-opening and sometimes alarming look into the world of adolescents.

It appears Perlstein has hit on another hot topic. On his blog, teacherken's lengthy summary and review of the book has already chalked up more than 40 comments. He writes:

“Certainly under the leadership of [principal] Tina McKnight the school has produced test scores that are notable. What Perlstein is able to do is provide the reader with the reality of the cost of those scores. Most parents would probably recoil from having their students in such a restricted learning environment. And for many students they are able to succeed on the tests because of intense focus on test preparation without necessarily learning the underlying skills those tests are supposedly assessing. Given the pressures placed on educators this should not be surprising.”

E.D. Hirsch and Larry Cuban have offered praise for the book here.

The book outlines how the school turned itself around, but asks the question: at what cost?

I’d be interested in your reviews.

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve already heard more than a few times the dreaded words of a child in the midst of summer break: “I’m bored.” Or my daughter’s version: “I’m Sooooo bored!” Of course the complaint is not an accurate reflection of summer vacation for many middle- and upper-income children, who have a wealth of activities lined up to keep them busy until the next school bell.

They tend to learn from those library and museums visits, family outings and vacations, summer camps and sporting events, albeit subconsciously or involuntarily.

A recent report from researchers at Johns Hopkins University concludes that the lessons learned during summer—or not learned--tend to contribute to the significant gap in achievement between children from more privileged backgrounds and their economically disadvantaged peers.

Education Week’s Scott Cech writes about the report, "Lasting Consequences of the Summer Learning Gap," here.

While learning gains are “more nearly equal” among students of various socioeconomic backgrounds during the school year, they tend to diverge quite dramatically during the summer months, according to the report. Researchers Karl L. Alexander, Doris R. Entwisle, and Linda Steffel Olson, culled longitudinal data from 325 Baltimore students from 1st grade to age 22 and found that students from relatively well-educated, economically secure homes saw significant increases in their test scores.

But Mr. Alexander, a sociology professor, cautions that there is no checklist of experiences that accounts for the disparities in performance.

“It’s important to point out a deeper reality, that in middle class or non-disadvantaged families, day-in and day-out the life experiences are qualitatively different than less well-off children,” he said.

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The typical expectation of many people is that when more students are taking tougher courses the academic rigor of those courses is likely to decline to meet the lower standards of the masses.

But recent results from the Condition of Education, the U.S. Department of Education's latest annual compendium of education statistics, show otherwise. The number of test takers has risen dramatically over the past eight years, especially among black and Hispanic students. Yet the increase in participation has led to only slight declines in AP-test scores.

In other words, having greater numbers of students taking harder classes pays off, and not just to trumpet greater participation, but in actual achievement.

Let's motivate even more students to test themselves in the AP world.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the responsibilities of this blog is to troll for interesting or useful research articles about student motivation.

This morning, I found one while trolling on the American Educational Research Association site. Titled "Students' Motivation for Standardized Math Exams," the article examines how individual differences in motivation and psychological processing affect performance on high-stakes math assessments. It evaluates how factors such as achievement goals, self-concept, and test anxiety are related to student performance.

Among other interesting information, the piece includes excerpts from interviews with 8th graders about high-stakes math tests. "Usually tests make me nervous," says one student. "Kind of anxious like I had to hurry and then when I hurry I might not get the right answer. Like I'm worried about making the time or falling behind the other kids or something ... if they're all done before me, I feel like I am not doing it correctly."

What impact do you think high-stakes assessments have on motivation or performance?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 9:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

From the T.F.A. Trenches has a recent entry that touches on the life lessons about resiliency that can be learned by struggling to master basic mathematical concepts. In this case, maybe a failing grade is still a step in the right direction. Nice little story. Check it out.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The stereotype of the highly motivated, high-achieving Asian student is hard not to buy into because Asian-Americans, as a group, outperfrom all other minorities in virtually all categories, and they beat white students on most measures too.

But Education Week reporter Lesli Maxwell's story this week, "The 'Other' Gap," points out that the picture of this group of students is much more nuanced than most people would expect. There are some important lessons to be learned--about culture, teenagers, schools, and motivation--from reading this story. Here is an excerpt from the piece:

"But what about closing the “top gap,” between the most outstanding Asian-American students and their white classmates? Why aren’t educators and policymakers talking about low-achieving Asian-American students, who they are, and what should be done to help them catch up? And what effect does the widely held assumption that all Asian-Americans do well in school regardless of social class or ethnic background—the “model minority” stereotype—have on students across the achievement spectrum?"

Any thoughts, insights?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In case you missed it, we had a fascinating online chat on edweek.org last week with local leaders from Rockland County, N.Y., which recently published a 72-page report on how the No Child Left Behind Act needs to be changed to better serve the needs of local school districts. A transcript of the chat is available on edweek.org.

Throughout the discussion, concerns were raised about the federal education law's impact on students' motivation to learn and teachers' motivation to teach. Chat guests and participants also expressed serious concerns that the law looks at education too narrowly, discouraging students from becoming well-rounded learners.

Harriet Cornell, a Rockland County political leader who was one of the featured guests for the chat, responded to a question about NCLB requirements for English-language learners by talking about a letter local leaders had written to U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings:

"Your question calls to mind a letter recently written by school administrators in Rockland County, addressed to U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings," Ms. Cornell said. "They wrote: 'Dr. Spellings, we ask you to imagine yourself a 12-year-old girl whose family moves to China. You are placed in a 7th grade class and begin to learn Chinese. In the middle of the second year (8th grade), you are given the same standardized test that Chinese-born 8th graders take to assess their Chinese reading, writing and listening skills. How appropriate will that test be for you? Will you meet standards?'

"We are deeply concerned about the emotional toll placed on children who are now being forced to take these high-stakes exams so soon after arriving in this country," Ms. Cornell continued. "In regard to children with disabilities, we have concluded that the goals of the legislation are diametrically opposed to the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in that it fails to recognize the individual strengths and challenges of these special needs children."

To be sure, it would have been better if the chat had also featured a pro-NCLB voice, because the two guests from Rockland County were very critical of the law.

Still, I found their local perspective refreshing. Their answers felt real and urgent, unlike the predictable blather you often hear about the law from Republicans and Democrats in Washington.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)