13 March 2010

MEAP TEST Report: Judgment Day in Michigan Schools

The MEAP Test results are in!

The MEAP test is Michigan's local flavor of High Stakes Testing. Each state has its own test because of our great American tradition of local control of education and the real fears that Obama's Muslim Socialism is poised to pounce on all the freedom loving real Americans. Fear not America! Your proud Babbitry will escape unscathed the efforts of the Professor President to destroy your way of life. He has placed education policy in the powerful hands of his Chicago hoops pal, Arne Duncan. Duncan is moving the President's agenda forward with vigor and enthusiasm. President Bush, that is. Soon Obama will preside over the death of teacher unions and public education, and the birth of Charter School America, with taxes flowing to the Christian Learning Charter School, the Tea Bagger Public Charter Academy, the Rosicrucian Pre-school, the Ayn Rand High School, and the Newt Gingrich Historical Fiction Middle School. Teachers, being a dime a dozen, will be paid a dime for every dozen students they teach. You know those private schools the monied types send their kiddos to? Soon your tax dollars will help defray the cost of polishing our future leaders. I see Obama cutting the ribbon at the opening of the Charles Grassley Charter High School of Recalcitrance, with Arne Duncan on his left and on his right, Randi Weingarten beaming up at her hero. Behind the Cheerleader-in-Chief Randi is a huge empty space where the AFT once stood before all its members were fired to the delight of our Presidents (Weingarten and Obama, that is.)

But I digress. I had intended to look at the MEAP results and so I shall, after a brief, but necessary, I assure you, bit of background.

I teach 5th grade Math and Science at a East Side Detroit Elementary school. Detroit is poor, but the East Side is POOR. Everything you've heard about Detroit is more so on the East Side.

One day before the 2009 school year started, I was sent to this school. The first week of school (six weeks before the MEAP test) I gave all 48 students (2 classes) a test that covered the 4th Grade Math curriculum. There are 79 questions on the test. This test is designed to be aligned with the state standards that will be tested on MEAP test.

The results were about what I've come to expect. The median score was 24. The MEAP test results are reported on a four point scale with 1 being the best and 4 being the worse. Scores of 1 and 2 are combined and, in 2009, a school must have 65% of its students in groups 1&2 to meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). If you don't make AYP, the principal sweats, yells a lot, and waits to get fired.

So. I started the school year with the prospect of maybe 5 or 6 kids slipping into level 2, and my principal yelling a lot. (She is an experienced yeller. I am an experienced ignorer of yelling principals.)

The district supplied me with nothing to address the impending train wreck. This is a good thing. In the past, the district has spent millions on printing materials that were no use at all, and then sending highly paid administrators to the school to make sure we used them. (I never have. Someday I need to make time to get those issues with authority looked into.)

What I did want from the district was an item analysis for each of my students from their previous years test. Then I could select topics to address and group kids by need. This information exists, but was unavailable. For reasons of economy I wont't go into them here. Suffice it to say, I was on my own.

As I mentioned several digressions ago, I had pre-tested my students. I used that test to focus instruction. I targeted areas of weakness, grouped students by need, and went at it. We spent most of the Math time over the next six weeks reviewing fourth grade math. This wasn't a waste a time or "Teaching to the Test." They did need to learn these things. I gathered materials, manipulatives, and homework for three groups at a time. That one kid who scored a 41 on the pre-test spent half his time reviewing and half working on a variety of logic puzzles.

We took the MEAP in mid-October. The kids answered the questions with no help from me. I wish it wasn't necessary to say that. Some asked for help and were frustrated when I said I couldn't. I explained why, but they were still upset. This is the third year these kids have taken the MEAP. Why did they think a teacher would help them? Shhhh! We don't talk about cheating.

And then we wait. In early Spring, the robins return to Michigan and mark our cars with the joy of the season. The state does the same with the MEAP results.

Here's how my wild things did.

Level 1: 31% 15 students
Level 2: 29.2% 14 students

Level 3: 29.2% 14 students
Level 4: 10.4% 5 students

60.4% in Levels 1 & 2.
The state requires 65%.

If 2 kids were moved from 3 to 2, 64.58% would have been in Levels 1 or 2. When I get the complete breakdown I will see how many more questions the top two level 3 students needed to answer correctly to move up to level 2. In my experience, this will come down to less than 5 questions in total. And you thought Bush-Gore was close.

So, you could say I failed. After all, most of the suburban schools made AYP. Some (Duncan, Wiengarten, Obama, Robert Bobb) will no doubt say that I've failed, my school should be closed, a charter should move into the building, and I can apply for a job at about half the pay, with even worse benefits than we agreed to in our last contract, a Teach For America "Veteran" (4 years) to coach me, and no protection when the next incompetent principal wants to fire me because I have this medical condition that makes it impossible for me to bend over to lick people's shoes.

COMING NEXT: A return to examining the Saviors of Education in Detroit

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