Evanston educators said they’re hopeful that President Barack Obama’s March 10 speech on education will spur new ideas about how Evanston schools reward teachers and assess students.
In a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce last month, Obama emphasized the importance of strong testing standards, increased college enrollment and early childhood education. But he also acknowledged that making sweeping changes quickly will be difficult. Obama must deal with the No Child Left Behind Act, a holdover law from the Bush administration which began a controversial focus on student assessment through standardized testing – standards which largely are dictated at the state level.
Rachel Hayman, vice president of the Evanston Township High School Board of Education, said schools are struggling under the provisions of No Child Left Behind.
“Certainly [it] is flawed legislation, and there are many things that could be done to it to change it and make it better for schools, including ETHS,” Hayman said.
One opportunity Hayman hopes Obama embraces is merit pay for teachers, under which raises are tied directly to student performance in the classroom.
“I do think we should reward our best teachers and encourage all of our teachers to become better,” she said.
Evanston educators and families said they also hope for changes to student assessment. No Child Left Behind gives states the freedom to determine their own standards, and some members of Evanston/Skokie School District 65 think Illinois has set the bar too low. The district services all of Evanston’s elementary and middle schools.
“There’s no doubt that No Child Left Behind has to some degree pointed out areas where states need to improve, but the standards, particularly in Illinois, are woefully low,” said Mindy Wallis, president of the District 65/202 PTA Council.
In his March 10 speech, Obama challenged states to address low test scores with tougher, clearer standards. In recent years, District 65 has seen improvement in student scores on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), administered in elementary and middle schools during the first two weeks of March. Most District 65 students meet or exceed state standards in math and science, but some community members think these results don’t tell the whole story.
“What I hope will come from the Obama education initiatives is that people will see behind the window dressings of these test scores to what’s really happening,” said Jonathan Baum, a member of the District 65 School Board from 2003 to 2007. “District 65 uses the tests that the state of Illinois prescribes, but those tests are watered down and don’t adequately measure what students need to know.”
Parents express similar displeasure with the state’s low standards.
“The ISAT is such a low bar to jump over, and so many kids jump over it, and then they’re off [the district’s] plate of things to worry about,” said Jane Berkley, who enrolled her children in Catholic school instead of remaining in District 65.
Members of District 65 also have noted a discrepancy in student performance on the ISAT and the EXPLORE test, the ACT’s college readiness test for eighth- and ninth-graders. The EXPLORE test is given to eighth-graders in District 65 as a pre-high school entrance exam. ISAT scores have improved in District 65, but EXPLORE test scores have remained largely flat, especially for minority students, said Wallis.
But district administrators said the ISAT tests different material than high school standardized tests and people should not try to correlate the results.
“It’s somewhat like comparing apples and oranges,” said Gordon Hood, principal of Nichols Middle School.
The ISAT tests students on standards established by the state of Illinois, but the ACT and EXPLORE tests use national standards. Problems arise from the differing expectations for middle school to high school students, said Judith Levinson, director of research, evaluation and assessment at ETHS.
“The ACT is a well-accepted college test, and we have kids do well on that test to get into college and pass No Child Left Behind standards,” Levinson said. “That’s very different from the standards that have been set forth on the ISAT test.”
ETHS has incorporated methods other than traditional multiple choice and timed standardized tests to evaluate incoming students. The high school also uses Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), a state-aligned computerized and untimed test, as well as the input of middle school teachers and principals.
“It’s an example of trying to expand the definition of a student’s performance to more than one measure,” Levinson said.
Despite these supplemental measures, standardized testing isn’t going away anytime soon, the officials and parents said. In the meantime, many members of District 65 would like to see Illinois work on President Obama’s goal to end the “race to the bottom in our schools.”
“The standards for a student in Illinois should be the same as the standards for students in other states,” Gordon said. “Public education should be the same no matter where it is, so the standards should be equal across the board.”
Parents agree the state should, in President Obama’s words, stop “low-balling” their children.
“I think looking at the data and making decisions based on that information, all of that is really good,” Berkley said. “But the bar has to be set high and it has to be broad. Otherwise, you’re spending all of this energy to meet this place that’s really low.”
Amie Ninh contributed reporting.
