I am going to recommend http://finance.yahoo.com/news/hardest-questions-3rd-graders-had-163000971.html for a take on current test wackiness. The New York State Education Department has historically given difficult tests and I am not surprised that only 36% of students passed the 2014 math exams. Those kids did better overall in math than reading, too. Only 31% of students passed the state reading exam. Here is a sample problem taken from the math test for the article.

Eduhonesty: Cripes. I’m not exactly negative on this problem. We need to find out where our students are operating on the learning curve and standardized tests should test the tails of the curve, exploring the limits of our strongest students. My concern focuses on the importance we are now placing on getting higher test scores on state tests. When only about one-third of test takers “pass” the test, we necessarily are making lots of eight-year-olds feel stupid.

My solution would be to scrap state tests, substituting computer-based, adaptive tests that start where the individual student left off on previous tests, offering harder or easier questions based on ongoing student responses. State tests are cumbersome instruments, only now being converted from bubbles on paper to computerized click and drag-and-drop versions. We used to give all students the same test because the logistics of adapting to individual students were too daunting to consider. But that adaptation has become entirely feasible today. We can track students’ past responses and keep these in available databases. We already have tests that change based on students’ responses.

Why do we need one test to rule them all? Individualized tests would provide more information. When a test is pitched too far above or below a student’s learning level, that test’s results often provide little information about what a student actually does know. Individualized tests would fill in the gaps in our understanding of academic mastery for our weakest and strongest students. Most importantly, those tests would allow students to see their progress more easily, while diminishing the discouragement created by unfortunate comparisons and harsh passing levels.

(I spent an afternoon in the ER, the source of inspiration for this post.)

In America, we provide the poor with health and dental care, but not necessarily convenient care. Dentists may be an hour away, which often translates to a whole lost school day if multiple children and meals are included in the dentist visit. When a student goes to the emergency room with an ear infection or similar childhood ailment, another day is lost.

Eduhonesty: Our poorest zip codes tend to be our most academically-challenged zip codes. I continue to push for a longer school-year for lower-scoring districts. This one small example supports the need for this longer school year. A twisted ankle where I live may result in an academic loss of two hours to a morning doctor appointment. Where I worked, that same injury required a day of waiting until the emergency care doctor could spare a few minutes.

Students also miss school when parents or siblings go to the ER. When the family stays up all night, everyone may stay home to sleep the next day. Sometimes mom or dad will take all the kids to the hospital because of bus and babysitting issues. If a parent doesn’t expect to be home for the afternoon bus, that parent may opt to keep the family together at the hospital rather than risk a child being dropped off in front of an empty house.

America’s poorest students frequently get their health care at the hospital. Often they don’t have a family physician. In the ER, staff only gets to the ear infections after almost everybody else has been taken care of.

Across the country, this use of emergency rooms for healthcare represents many, many hours of school lost.

P.S. Despite some misgivings over the Affordable Care Act, I feel I must give kudos to President Obama for taking on the monster issue that is national healthcare. I have let too many students sleep at their desks because they spent the whole night in an emergency room when a brother or sister got sick.

I am on vacation. I have been taking a seemingly endless stream of planes, car trips, and buses. In my latest hidey-hole, a daughter and her boyfriend have joined me.

Yesterday, we were watching Judge Joe Brown on the television. One of the “litigants” claimed to be a rapper. At that point, Judge Joe Brown went off on a rant about how too many young adults planned to be rappers or NBA/NFL players, and too few planned instead to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, or other professionals.

He’s right. Far too many of my students have told me they plan to be professional sports stars or rappers. Teachers have to shoulder some of the blame here, I believe. We are taught to tell our students that they can be whatever they want to be. Many teachers say, “Great!” when they hear the NFL or rapper plan. They maybe add a comment or two about having a backup plan.

We do our students no favor when we pretend to believe in unattainable goals. When a boy is 5’5″ and has a beard, he is not going to be big enough to get into the NFL. If he shows spectacular talent on the field, encouraging him makes some sense. He might get a college scholarship out of his talent. But when that kid is a mediocre player who is destined to be a small guy, we are doing him zero favors by applauding his plan. That kid needs a reality check.

Pro sports and rapping do not require much educational preparation. In high school, all an athlete expects to have to do academically is maintain the C average required to be eligible to play. In our academically lower schools, that C average is insufficient preparation for college success. In some cases, students even graduate with that average while effectively illiterate and innumerate. That one fact helps explain why one-third of community college students require remedial classes before they can do regular coursework.

Even a student with the talent and physique necessary to succeed in professional sports needs to be encouraged to develop a sound educational back-up plan. I don’t have exact numbers, but I am certain that the number of available NFL positions totals much less than 1% of the number of students across America who aspire to land one of those positions.

While we need to encourage dreams, we also need to tell the truth.

Before starting her Masters in Educational Leadership program, she was supposed to read the below books and others. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the demanding work that educators take on to better themselves. On top of moving to another state and going into debt to enter the program, this young woman has been attacking “improving” literature furiously.

We require teachers to pass subject tests in the areas of their certification. To teach Spanish, I had to pass a Spanish test. I also had to demonstrate that I had the necessary number of college credits to qualify as a Spanish teacher.

More and more often today, we are using tests and rubrics to evaluate teacher effectiveness. May I suggest that it’s past time to require that educational administrators meet a minimum standard of mathematical competency? A minor in statistics or equivalent coursework ought to be mandatory for school leaders nowadays. Too many former English and P.E. teachers are making decisions based on numbers they don’t understand and sometimes cannot even calculate.

(See my post from March 15 of this year for a scary example.)

How much is enough? How can we use data responsibly in a school? Teachers and administrators are pouring data into spreadsheets. When can we stop?

Too often, these questions are lightly addressed, if they are addressed at all. Years ago, I worked as a bonds analyst in the home office of an insurance company. The CEO emphasized his own productivity program, the central idea being that employees needed to move on when the bulk of a task was accomplished. Don’t dot the i’s. Don’t cross the t’s. Get out before you get into diminishing returns and bog down in the minutiae. His concern was the opportunity cost created by all those small details.

Many educational administrators need to learn about opportunity costs. What is the spreadsheet for? Do you need six tests? In the process of learning your students’ operational grade level in mathematics, what other useful information can you glean at the same time?

Sometimes making the list of goals with the big picture in mind can help. Asking the right questions helps. Do we need a comprehensive breakdown of the names and numbers of students who can convert fractions to percentages? How can we minimize instructional time lost? How will we use the data we are generating? Do we have the time to take advantage of the data we are creating? How much will the full day of work required to create these new spreadsheets antagonize teachers — especially if that work does not appear to result in any practical changes?

Data-gathering and data manipulation should always take into account the amount of time required to fulfill data goals. Our data-gathering efforts tend to come directly and indirectly out of instructional time. With that in mind, administrators need to figure out exactly what answers they require and how to minimize the time and effort necessary to get those answers. Too often, these issues receive scant attention, as an email is sent out telling teachers to give yet another test and assess the results of that test, putting those answers in a communal spreadsheet that may or may not provide sufficient benefit for the time-cost involved. Passing the data buck onto teachers compromises students’ educations when time and opportunity costs are not considered.

Businesses always consider opportunity costs when making important decisions. The executives at the car company know that when they build Car A, they are committing resources that could be used to build Car B instead. They build Car A because market research suggests that particular car will be the most profitable choice, given the constraints posed by available resources.

The opportunity cost incurred by data-gathering in a school district most frequently will be loss of instructional time or preparation. That cost should never be minimized or ignored.