Sub Vision: A New Low for Mathematics or just the New Normal?

The other day I was asked to cover a math class at a reputable school. The system didn’t give the teacher’s name but when I got to the school I realized I had worked for that teacher before, and he is the math department head.

As in previous times, he left tests for each of his classes with instructions how to sit the students and in what order to distribute the tests, part A then part B.

I was alarmed, though, when I discovered in his instruction that he wants me to grade the tests. Most of the tests were geometry, for sure within my skills, but hey, I am a substitute teacher for that specific reason, so I don’t have to grade 200 tests.

I decided to ignore it and just made sure students were doing their job, answering their own tests (using their own brain), but when a student came to me with what she claimed to be a completed part A, and it was very easy to see that she didn’t bother to solve the equations, I told her she needed to go back and complete it.

She did, but not before she told me it doesn’t matter, what matter is that she showed some work. I rejected that notion and sent her back to her seat.

Later that day I saw the teacher and he asked me if I graded the tests. I asked him if he really meant that I give grades to his students. “Oh no” he said, “all I want you to do is to count the number of problems done, give 10 points for each problem, and write the total, so that my TA (usually a student) can put down their grades…”

So here is my questions, does he also go back to check that the answers were correct? Is it a separate grade or ‘my’ grade is THE grade?

Additional question is, of course, is it reasonable for a teacher to check methodically 200 tests? Is it doable?

My personal challenge was what deserves 10 points. If someone just puts a numeric answer without any proof of work, does that merit ten points? If an equation is clearly incorrect, does that count? What about an unsolved equation (correct or incorrect), does that deserve ten point?

I made my own decisions and I am so thankful not to be accountable for them!

Substitute Teaching: Good teacher or good Students?

I was called back to the same school about a month later, to replace the same teacher. I hoped to have a different group, since students meet only every other day, but it was the same group. I was nerves about seeing again the kid with the black eye. He was there, but seemed OK and more serious and subdued now…

I distributed the worksheets the teacher had left there, and only later realized that their title was ‘Chapter Test’. Since nothing in teacher’s notes mentioned a test I, first, ignored it, but after confirming with students I established test discipline…

During the test, students had asked me questions and it forced me to look at the test and try to solve it. Parts of it were easy enough, but others were more challenging. At one point, a female student had asked for help on a problem that I could not figure out immediately, and I was wondering how other students solved it.

Not much later, my special student ended his test. I did notice on the previous visit that he was very quick, and the first to complete a worksheet or a test. I checked his solution to the problem the female student had asked, but his answer did not seem right to me. He also left out another, longer and more involved, problem.

I started checking every test handed back to me to see who had solved those two problems correctly.  None of the answers to the two problems seemed to be correct, and only few students even attempted to solve them …

I had only three classes that day, and was curious to see how the second period will deal with those problems. They had the same test, and checking each one, I did not find correct answers to the tricky questions, and very few attempts all together …

The third period of the day was of honors students, a very crowded class that I remembered from my previous visit. Their test was in a separate pile but looking at it, I realized it was the same. Now I was really interested in how they will perform.

The difference between this class and the others was obvious from the start. They insisted on having a review before taking the test, so I did let them ask questions.

We spent about half the period on review, despite my advice to start the test to give them enough time. They wanted to be sure, a sign of motivation and ambition.

At last, I distributed the tests and waited, impatiently, to see the result. When the first test was handed back to me, I saw with delight that the answers were exactly right. I complemented the girl for being the first to answer correctly. Later, not to spoil her pride, I did not mention that every single test was absolutely correct too…

So… here we are - same school, same population, with the same teacher - the students in the more crowded class, on the last period of the day (and week), were just superior to students in the other two classes. They were more motivated to learn, it was quite clear, but they were also… how to say it… smarter!

Teacher’s fault? Teacher’s praise? Is she to be blamed for the failure of the first two classes or to be praised for the success of the third class?

Ch 5 of 20: Standardized Tests

Imagine a manager who works very hard, during the day and after hours, on weekends and vacations, and being paid only forty thousand dollars a year, sometimes even less. Imagine a manager who has to buy not only his/her own papers, pens and other office supplies, but has to buy them for his entire staff, from his own pocket, with a very slim chance to ever get paid back. And, how about hundreds of photocopies, paid cash at Kinko's, just because the company’s copy machine is either out of commission or tens of people are waiting to use it?

Picture a manager who is being pressured by the board of directors to increase productivity. He knows his paycheck is not going to be altered as a result, but his performance evaluation depends on it. Of course, he wants to do his best and provide top service to the company, so he asks the board for some guideline on incentives he could offer his employees for doing well and deterrents for an unsatisfying job. The response is – none, neither incentives nor deterrents. “Your employees will be just proud of the company”, he is told. “But if they don’t raise productivity - are they going to be fired?” asks the idealist manager. “No! Not at all! It is not going to affect them; they should do it for the sake of the company…”

Now, think about a teacher who is asked to raise his students’ standardized tests score, and whose performance evaluation is based on the performance of his/her students on that test. There is an enormous pressure on schools that, in turn, becomes an enormous pressure on teachers, to perform well on the standardized tests. I have seen teachers trying to do everything, including the impossible, to get students to perform well on those tests; volunteering endless hours, even weekends, with no additional pay, buying food for every single person in the class, meeting students during the summer to correct their report card grade if they increased their test score (even by ONE point. Even if that teacher’s job is not secured for the following year…)  I have seen schools forcing teachers to spend so much time on the standardized testing preparation that they don’t even have time to teach half of what they supposed to teach…

Why doesn’t it work? The answer is very simple. It takes a common sense of a child to point out to what thousands of sophisticated adults refuse to admit about the emperor’s clothing… that he wears nothing…

Our students know the truth. They know that the entire force of teachers, administrators and district leaders, are armed with NOTHING that can make them do well! If performance is not going to affect their report card grade they are not going to put effort in it… they know that nothing can be done to them!

You see, our students are just as smart as those employees who are asked to raise productivity. They ask – “What is there for me?”

If the employees know that raising their productivity does not come with a raise in their paycheck, and on the other hand, there is no danger of being fired, they are not going to perform – why should they bother? How much do they care about the image of the company?

If student know that the results of the standardized tests have no consequence on their report card grades, and they are neither going to benefit nor penalized for their performance - why should they bother to do their best on a long, tiring, and irrelevant test? What is there for them…? And they raise this very question every single time before a standardized test.

I have many stories about the pathetic hysteria that occurs at a school during the tensed time of the testing. I can tell you about countless hours put by paid and unpaid school employees who are assigned to the job as full time or part time coordinator (…and it is always more than a full time job…)

On my first year supervising a test I caught a student cheating (using a calculator when no calculators allowed). I dutifully dragged that student to the headquarters of the testing and reported him to the supervisor in charge. Soon enough I found myself being interrogated about the nature of the cheating, if I really saw it or just imagined seeing it, was it really a calculator or only seemed to be a calculator, and so on… At last I realized that I’d better cooperate with the nature of the investigation and leave room for a doubt that maybe it didn’t happen… it took me years to realize what scrutiny schools face if they don’t reach minimum percentage of participating students, and what exercises schools practice to reach this percentage…

Another story is about a different standardized test, mandated few times a year by the district. During my first year, teaching full time, it was a periodic nightmare. Without any warning, the department head would come to me and instruct to administer this test immediately, make sure to check the open response answers myself, and submit it on the following day… Then, for a while, I didn’t see that test and almost forgot about it until several years later, when, due to an injury of the permanent teacher, I took over teaching algebra to classes consisting of repeated algebra students. These classes were very tough and challenging; I knew some of the students from previous years and was walking on eggshells dealing with them… All went quite well for several weeks until, all of a sudden, a command came from above – Administer the horrid test! Now, these are very low motivated students, who are so smart and calculated about where and if to put their effort. Certainly, they are not going to do anything that doesn’t pay to their immediate interest. Thus, I had to face an ethical dilemma - do I just let them take it easy, compromising about noise level in the classroom, and letting them pick at their neighbors’ test (stupidly – the test is only one version), or do I act on my conscious (and on the fear that administrator will sure come and check on them, and on me…) So, I started a losing battle, in a desperate attempt to get them to work quietly, as hard as they can, and on their own…  I lost not only that battle but I lost it for the rest of the year… from that time on I could not make them do anything any longer, and each day of the remaining two weeks of school I was praying that the day will be over without any major incident…

A curious finding about that specific test: When I received the tests results, I was surprised to find out that students’ performances were almost in an opposite correlation to their ability, according to my assessment. It took me a long time to figure out why. What I realized, at last, was that students who didn’t care, just marked all the answers without checking them, but did finish the test. Obviously some of their answers were correct. The good and conscious students took a long time to answer and check, but never got to the end of the test, and thus their overall score was lower than of those who marked randomly, but answered all questions… 

That much for standardized tests, their value for assessing students, and even worse, their value in assessing teachers…

Yet, time and again, teachers are being blamed for the failure of their students in the standardized tests. Blamed in the best case; evaluated, penalized and in some cases – being fired, in the less fortunate case. Blamed for something of which they have no control, nor do they have the tools to control it…