Rod Paige Questions for the Senate

I watched the senate confirmation hearings on rod paige...the senators seemed clueless on the CEP scandal (not a SINGLE question!), how test scores magically rose (no questions on how he did that or challenging "teaching to the test" at the expense of teaching other subjects), no questions on the stats on special ed in HISD (# students put in special ed in Houston have risen faster than any of the other major districts in Texas), and the fact that Paige has, and still has, just about the worst dropout statistics in the entire country (and still the worst in Texas).

State District Judge Michael McSpadden recently told a packed courtroom that if the Houston Independent School District is a role model, "then God help the rest of the nation."

Did someone make a pact to keep it all secret and hidden from the public so that the public only sees the good stuff instead of what is really happening? Or is Terry Abbott (Paige's full-time PR guy) that good?

For background on Rod Paige, TAAS validity, and various hyperlinks: see Rod Paige Page and the links at the bottom of that page.

Basically, Paige hasn't been any more destructive than any other Texas superintendent. But it is expected he will push big time for privatization in education. Unfortunately, this is a bad idea, made worse by Paige's inability to confront the facts (if the news is bad) and hold people accountable. He has:

• made material misrepresentations regarding test scores at CEP (test scores that were "too good to be true") conflicted with data from his own two statisticians who independently found that test scores showed the opposite; never informed people of the conflict or issued a press release clarifying it. Even if the CEP test method is validated (by Mike Beck, the Pleasantville, New York, assessment expert who validated the TAAS.), Paige had no way to know if it was correctly administered. See article about Paige that appeared in April in Houston Press
• He doesn't want people to know the truth: why else did he not allow Tom Kellow to visit the CEP school?
• CEP grades were later found to be fabricated but he didn't launch an investigation of where the policies came from (not clear if he told parents). See this later  article which points out CEP fabricates grades. The wrong people got fired.
• he has not held CEP accountable: no investigations by HISD, the contract with CEP says TAAS testing is not permitted, the CEP contract only guarantees results if student there for 180 days a year (few make it that far, and few make it to 120 days)
• publicly misrepresented the education going on at CEP: when Wendy Grossman talked to students that CEP "hand-picked," they said they are bored out of their minds. CEP is a dumping ground, not a great learning environment. That is a pretty big material difference here.
• a poor track record in improving education. The Houston dropout rate is among the 8 worst in the entire country (among the 100 largest districts) and the worst in Texas.
• generally done nothing special as this recent Houston Press article points out

In short, bad news disappears or individuals (who were not responsible for the problem) get axed when something bad happens . When things don't go his way, he cherry picks suspect data so he doesn't look bad and looks the other way as far as accountability (holding CEP accountable, being accountable to the parents of the kids by telling them the truth or informing them of credible challenges to data that had been reported).

Fabricating test scores
So his worst offense is ignoring reliable data (presented to him over 4 years from two of his own statisticians: Carl Shaw in the first few years of CEP and Tom Kellow most recently) and believing the test data that CEP had given him. Without discussing the reports with Kellow, or having any valid reason to believe the CEP data as accurate (other than representations from the company and an outside consultant), he represented publicly that the CEP test data is true (without mentioning the conflict), thus sentencing the kids who need the most help to a sentence of boredom leading to dropout.

No accountability
Furthermore, the CEP contract says the money-back guarantee is only for kids who stay over 180 days per year in the program at that is virtually no one, so there is no true accountability in the contract.

Nor was there any investigation as to why the CEP test data differed

Your accomplishments

• What do you consider your major accomplishments since becoming HISD superintendent? 
• Your major failing(s)?
• Bush said his campaign is dedicated to the proposition that no child shall be left behind. Are any children being "left behind" in Houston?
• we know that many of the East End (mainly Latino) schools do not have science labs or even basic utilities in science classrooms -- including at the high school level. We know that many of their schools have very thin, out of date, book collections if they have a library at all. We know that many of these students do not have textbooks (though state law says every kid is to get a book in every subject, and the state shows a surplus of textbooks statewide -- so this is a district problem).
• State District Judge Michael McSpadden told a packed courtroom that if the Houston Independent School District is a role model, "then God help the rest of the nation." Can you explain why he might have said that?
• How do you answer the concerns that have been raised that Houston's supposed test score increases are largely due to students being retained in grade and pushed out of school?

   

Your vision for the future of education in America

• What are your major goals for education in America?
• What are your views of privitization of education?

• What are your views of the importance of each of these methods for improving the quality of education in America:

  • 1) Increase Per Pupil Expenditures 
  • 2) Lower Pupil-Teacher Ratios in lower grades
  • 3) Increase percentage of teachers reporting adequate resources for teaching
  • 4) Increase participation in pre-kindergarten programs
  • 5) Lower teacher turnover
• Are there any items we should remove from the list? Add to that list? On what basis do you choose which are the top policies to implement? Scientific papers? Gut feel? 

Your views on Measurement and testing

• How can we measure academic progress? what measures are valid? what criteria do you use to decide whether a measurement is valid? naep, taas, tasp, sat
• The July RAND report was cited by the Bush administration as showing Texas had made impressive gains. Do you believe that this report is credible? 
• What is your opinion of high-stakes testing? What are the disadvantages and how do you think those disadvantages should be addressed?
• Instead of high stakes testing, are there any better alternatives? Why not computerized testing (as advocated by RAND)? Or use national tests (NAEP)?
• Does Houston administers any tests besides the TAAS and if so, what are they, do they show the gap is widening or narrowing, and is the change in student performance over time on these other tests comparable to those on the TAAS?
• Aren't we sacrificing gain in other subjects by focusing teacher time on teaching to the test? Instead of teaching students the material, we are teaching them how to take tests and learning only that material that is tested. And that learning doesn't show up on NAEP, TASP, and SATs, so how can we be so sure it does show up real life?
• The ability to think abstractly, logically, creatively are not emphasized on TAAS. So we are not teaching other subjects, only teaching stuff on the test. Is that the best education for our students?
• When test results are used to evaluate students, teachers and schools, the institutions are always in a better position to protect their interests than are the children. The easiest way of making school average test scores look better is by excluding low-scoring students. The most common ways of doing so are 1) flunking students in the grade before the high stakes test ( e.g. grade 9 in TX); 2) driving students out of school (which is easily promoted by flunking them in grade 9); and 3) classifying students as in special education. Which are done in Houston?
• We know that most of the score increases come from either dumping the lowest performing kids (as seen in these enrollment figures) or in dumping curriculum in order to do weeks and weeks of test practice.  For teachers and kids, it's "the way school is" here and dominates everything. Finding a school where test prep is NOT the order of the day is difficult.
• the treatment of ESL and LEP kids (limited English); there has been much manipulation of these kids' education, their exclusion or inclusion from testing (pressure to push them into testing faster, yet excluding them when it helps school scores go up) -- a huge problem given the 52% Hispanic student population. Am not sure how to get at this, but these problems and the general lack of attention to hiring Latino and Spanish-speaking teachers, lack of linguistically appropriate instructional materials for these kids, etc. is a very serious reason they do not thrive in the system and that they drop out in such large numbers.
• In light of test scores being imperfect measurements of academic learning, is it fair to keep a student from progressing to the next grade level based on their TAAS scores? 

Your views on Texas' educational accomplishments

• Do you consider TAAS scores an accurate measure of academic performance in Texas?
• Do you consider NAEP exams to be a valid measure of academic performance? How about TASP? SAT scores? 
• Should we expect to see gains on TAAS scores show up in national exam scores? Why or why not? If gains on NAEP do show up, as in the RAND study, should that be trumpted as a major accomplishment? Or a random cirriculum overlap that is not meaningful?
• How much overlap is there between the Texas curriculum and TAAS for example?
• Have you read Walt Haney's paper, "The Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education"? Are the conclusions valid? If not, what information do you have that the peer reviewers missed?
• Have you read the 12 page RAND report on TAAS that came out in October? Are the conclusions valid? If not, what information do you have that the peer reviewers missed?
• The gains in TAAS scores reported seems absurd, don't they? 
• At the Texas Senate Education Committee meeting, Don McLeroy State Board of Education from Bryan, says that teachers are using too much time preparing for the TAAS test and too little time fostering learning. He recommends that parents be given the opportunity to choose a placement test that will provide feedback on a student's true abilities, and what the student still needs to learn.
• The New York Times reported that in February 1999, officials with the University of Texas system presented a report to a Texas House subcommittee complaining of "marked declines in the number of students who are prepared academically for higher education."

How you handled challenging situations

• How does Houston's high school dropout rate compares with other large districts in Texas (worst)? How much as the dropout rate improved in Houston relative to other Texas districts over the time you've been in office? Why? Answer: it is still the worst dropout rate of the largest texas districts according to haney's table (below)
• There are schools in Houston without a library (yes, Jefferson Davis High School and the middle school that feeds it). Why? What have you done about this problem? Why is it still a problem?
• Why did you hire Terry Abbott? How much is he paid? Isn't that a bit unusual? Where did you get this idea? Is anyone else doing it?

The situation with CEP

• Was Tom Kellow's report wrong? What specifically was wrong? How did you know who to believe (CEP or your own statisticians who reported the same thing) when you made the report to the Manhattan Institute?
• Were Carl Shaw's reports wrong? If so, why did you keep using him (for 4 years)?
• Why didn't  you ever meet with Tom Kellow to explain his memo?
• Were there any inaccuracies in the two Houston Press articles on Kellow and on the CEP grade scandal? What were they?
• If the students are making such remarkable progress at CEP, why isn't it reflected on TAAS or SAT-9? Surely, there must be some residual effect, shouldn't there? How could those scores be going down? Is that what you expected? Is there a huge curriculum difference relative to other Texas kids? what is it and why? Can you be specific here: can you give me a specific example of TAAS and SAT-9 questions that you expected CEP students not to be able to handle and relate that to the curriculum? If you can't answer that, then why were you not surprised that TAAS and SAT-9 scores declined?
• How long had the forgery of exam scores and grades being going on at CEP? When did it end? How do you know that it has ended? 
• What punishment did you give to CEP or how did you otherwise hold them accountable? How are you monitoring CEP now to ensure this can't happen again?
• What other accountability standards and independent measurements are in place with CEP?
• What communication did you make to the parents of CEP kids when you found out about the fabrication of scores?
• Since the forgery of test scores are well documented at CEP, isn't it possible that the scores used to validate the overall progress students have made (as presented to the Manhattan Institute) might be bogus as well? Surely they are suspect. When you found out about the fraudulent grades, what steps did you take to make sure that the CEP test scores that you reported to the Manhattan Institute were accurate?
• Don't you think it is unrealistic for students to improve 2+ grade levels in 1 year (especially for problem kids)? Where has this been done before? If it hasn't been done before, then why isn't such a remarkable achievement being copied everywhere? Was it your expectation that such improvements wouldn't show up in any independent test? Why? Is there an independent test that can be used to validate the claims made by the CEP? Which test is it? And why has it not been administered?
• What was the process by which CEP was selected as the vendor for this program? Who made the decision? Did it bother you that the top executives had no experience in education?
• Are you concerned about students learning by sitting in front of a computer screen every day with minimal teacher interaction?
• Do you think all the disgruntled employees of CEP were just bad hires, or do you think there is a pattern here? Have you ever met with any of the CEP employees who were fired or resigned? 
• Have there been any students that you didn't have to pay for because they didn't progress as fast as the 2 grade level guarantee that the CEP has?
• How many students stay at CEP more than 120 days (what percentage)? More than 180 days (answer should be next to none)? Doesn't the guarantee only kick in for those students that stay 180 days? If so, then isn't this a meaningless guarantee? Where is the accountability here?

For dropout data on top 100 districts, see Houston dropouts

see Rod Paige Page

Questions on the Houston Public Schools

1. Fact: You have been asked to fulfill president-elect Bush's mandate that "no child be left behind." And yet, the Houston Independent School District, under your superintendency graduates only 46% of its students. According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, it ranks 93rd -- the seventh worst -- among the 100 largest school districts in the % of students it graduates. (Source: Haney, 2001; U.S. Dept of Ed "100 Largest School District," 1999.)

Q: How do you explain this low graduation rate? Who are these students and what happens to them?

2. Fact: In each of the last five years the Houston Independent School District enrollment figures show approximately 18,000 - 20,000 9th graders and only about 7,000 - 8,000 seniors. (Source: HISD Profiles, 1995, 1996, 1997. . .2000.)

Q.: What happens to these high school students, if more than half are disappearing from the schools before graduating? What steps have you taken to assure that all high school freshmen will receive a high school education? Have their been any increases in the graduate rates during the past three years? [no]

3. Fact: Houston ISD frequently reports students earning the Graduate Equivalency Diploma (the GED) along with those who actually graduate from high school.

Q: To you, does the GED truly represent a high quality education for these students? If not, why aren't these statistics disaggregated so that parents and the community will have a better idea how many students actually receive a high school education? Do you know the percentage of students reported as graduating who in fact received a GED instead?

4. A recent RAND study (Klein) shows that Texas children's test score gains on the TAAS are not reflected in their scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). (Source: see RAND study by Klein, 2000, and discussion of it in Haney, 2001.)

Q: How do you explain the gap between children's performance on these two measures? Which do you see as the more reliable measure? What is your response to those who argue that Texas' TAAS scores are not validated by asimilar, more widely used tests, such as the SAT and the NAEP?

5. It is widely reported that practicing for the TAAS test is displacing the reading of literature and history, arts education, mathematical thinking and other important curricula. (Source: McNeil and Valenzuela, 2000; McNeil, 2000 and others.)

Q: How do you respond to research findings and news reports from Texas schools describing an intense focus on test drilling for students?

6. Some high school principals report that many of their students who have passed the "reading" section of the TAAS test are unable to read school assignments.

Q: How can the district put so much emphasis on TAAS scores if they do not seem to correlate reliably with what children can actually do in school?

7. It has been reported that there are high schools in Houston ISD which lack laboratory facilities for science classes. Children and teachers report that there are classrooms with too few books for the number of students. These problems seem more prevalent in schools that serve predominately Hispanic children. (Source: student panel at a high school; reports to after-school care givers who provide homework assistance; parents; others.)

Q: Are you aware that these conditions exist? How do you justify having students go to schools that do not have basic running water and lab supplies in their science rooms? How do you justify classrooms that have too few books? [note: state law in Texas requires that every child be provided with the textbook for each subject -- classrooms described here as missing textbooks are not classrooms where technology and other rich resources have replaced textbooks] Should children who do not have adequate textbooks and equipment be tested on the same state tests taken by children in adequately equipped schools? Should teachers and children in the under-resourced schools be held accountable for the same outcomes as teachers and children in the schools that have adequate facilities and instructional materials?

8. The Texas legislature has suspended funding for any new chater schools, based on the record of the charter schools already in existence in Texas.

Q: What implications does this questionable record have for the future of charter school and voucher programs?

9. Fact: more than 50% of the students in the Houston public schools are Hispanic. Many are designated as Limited English Proficient.

Q: How have opportunities for students learning English as a second language improved during your tenure in Houston?

10. Fact: The Houston public school district has received much publicity for raising students' scores on the TAAS. And yet at many schools very few of the students are tested. For example, a Latino high school with more than 2,400 students received a great deal of press (and praise from central office) for increasing their pass rate on TAAS from 50% to more than 80%. And yet, instead of testing all its 10th graders (approximately 600 students), the school's pass rate was based on fewer than 300 students' taking 10th grade TAAS. At school after school, especially in the high schools, passing scores, and the school's increases in scores, are based on a very small number of students.

Q: Should a school deserve great praise for raising its TAAS scores by testing only a small number of students who should be in the tested grade?

11. High school principals report that they are under enormous pressure from administrators to retain 9th graders so that they will not take the 10th grade TAAS. These principals report that they retain sometimes more than half the 9th grade class (any student who has failed even one course). These retained students do not take the 10th grade TAAS. As a result, the scores for the school are considerably higher than they would be if all students in their second (sophomore) year at the school took the TAAS.

Q: What do you think of using such artificial means for inflating schools' test scores? Are schools being held accountable for educating all children if they are permitted (even encouraged) to artificially exclude large cohorts of children from key testing years? What have you done to discourage use of this 9th grade waiver so that the high school test scores can more accurately reflect how the schools are doing in educating all the children?

12. Fact: Office of Civil Rights data show that children in bilingual programs significantly out-perform children in English-only programs on the Stanford Nine.

Question: If you are in support of bilingual education, why is it that you did not protest against the HISD school board's support of a policy that called for a "quick" transitioning of out of bilingual education into the English-only curriculum, particularly in light of the OCR (Office of Civil Rights) findings?

13. Fact: Even before racial preferences were eliminated from the selection factors for admission into the Houston Independent School District Vanguard (gifted and talented) and magnet programs, whites were already over-represented in these programs. They were three times as likely as non-whites to be represented in these programs according to data generated by the Latino Education Policy Council (which they subsequently shared with the HISD atty.,Mr. Frels). Since the inauguration of the new policy, African American and Latino representation in these special academic programs has plummeted, making these programs even less accessible to African American and Latino students in HISD.

Q: What do these trends suggest to you?

Other stuff I have

• Steve, the conference at UH was to showcase these papers which had been invited to show how HISD had successfully reformed. The school board member who organized the conference and the book the papers will appear in had final editorial authority over the papers (thus many scholars who were invited declined to participate -- the "findings" were supposed to be already known in advance). The writers of the papers had access only to district-supplied data. Only one mentioned that she had had to work from supplied data and did not have the opportunity to compare the supplied data with other sources.
• To make it even more plain, when test results are used to evaluate students, teachers and schools, the institutions are always in a better position to protect their interests than are the children. The easiest way of making school average test scores look better is by excluding low-scoring students. The most common ways of doing so are 1) flunking students in the grade before the high stakes test ( e.g. grade 9 in TX); 2) driving students out of school (which is easily promoted by flunking them in grade 9); and 3) classifying students as in special education.
• Here is the requested information by HISD high school on graduation figures as compared to the numbers that would be expected to graduate given the enrollments.
  
  We have also received a copy of a 1998 report from Kathryn Sanchez in the HISD Research and Accountability office addressed to Dr. Rod Paige, showing the 1996-97 "status for 1993-94 9th grade cohort." That report shows that only 23.1% are listed as "drop outs," but an additional 20.9% is listed as "withdraw" and an additional 5.1% as "no show." The memo that goes along with this report says "As you can tell, the 23.% longitudinal dropout rate is much lower than the 50-52% rates being speculated by the community." However, by most traditional calculations, students who are "no show" are also counted as drop outs and unless there is specific documentation in the file that a student officially withdraws and transfers to another receiving school (not just "withdraw"), they are also counted as drop-outs or early school leavers. That total comes closer to the 50% figure that the U.S. Dept of Ed stats have shown as holding fairly steady and certainly not improving during this past five years. (If you want this faxed to you, let me know.)
• The table below is is a very rough estimate based on dividing enrollments by the number that would be in that grade if the whole cohort in that grade (or school) made it to senior year. No district has 100% of the kids making it to graduation, but it's important to see just in very plain terms how many kids are not making it through the system. Again, this is in light of the claims that these policies "leave no child behind."

Houston Press articles about Paige

Houston Press Online -- Days of Paige (most recent article)

Digital City Houston - Houston Issues (see all 25 comments)

Houston Press Online --  Making (Up) the Grade (ignoring test data)

Houston Press Online -- Learning Curve (fabricating grades)

Other links

Bush's Texas Miracle- Fact or Fiction
Summarizes what I found out about Bush's "Texas Miracle" in education

The Finn Editorial- lots of questions
Shows that attacks on the latest RAND report are full of smoke and that nothing special happened in Texas: it progressed the same as the rest of the country. Finn himself couldn't answer any of the questions I raised.

A closer look at the Bush education record posted on Bush's web
Provides evidence disproving (or discrediting) each educational accomplishment that was posted on Bush's campaign website