The Flawed Thinking Behind ‘No Excuses’

[LWolf]

BY RICHARD ROTHSTEIN

http://www.aasa.org/publications/sa/2004_10/punchback.htm

This is a great editorial taking on testing myths; it's worth reading the whole thing.

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Improving the social, health and economic circumstances of families who are poor is clearly needed to close the achievement gap. Yet acknowledging the impact of social class on measured outcomes is commonly derided as “making excuses,” and school leaders are bombarded with exhortations to close the gap themselves with only better leadership and curriculum, higher expectations and more accountability.

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Claims that some schools have closed the gap and therefore all can do so rely upon such reasoning errors. The Heritage Foundation has published lists of “No Excuses” schools, yet most of these select students from the top of the distribution of all disadvantaged students. One, for example, houses a districtwide gifted and talented program. Of course this school outperforms others with similar demographics. Others are schools of choice where more educationally motivated parents enroll their children. For others, disadvantage is defined simplistically, such as a school with graduate students' children, called disadvantaged because parents' stipends were low enough to qualify children for lunch subsidies.

The Education Trust also publishes lists of "high-flying" schools where most students are from minority or poor backgrounds and whose percents passing state tests are in the top third of their states. Some states have more such schools because their tests are simpler. Even so, most high flyers are statistical flukes. Their high passing rates are in only one subject (not reading and math) and one grade and for only one year. The list evaporates if we seek scores that are consistently high.

Defense Department schools often are called models for beating demographic odds in producing results. Military salaries are low and dependent children qualify for lunch subsidies, but enlistees have more education than parents of typical disadvantaged children and families have adequate health care, housing and nutrition, all factors that support learning. Commanding officers discipline parents who don’t enforce proper discipline for their children. Wouldn’t school superintendents like to have this authority?