Questions that need to be asked about MAP results

Some have described me as hypocritical for making such a big deal out of local schools' MAP scores when I have criticized the overemphasis on poorly written standardized tests time after time in the past.

I have not changed my views on those tests and remain staunchly opposed to the idea that the tests should be used to evaluate teachers.

That being said, the MAP and other standardized tests, though overemphasized, do provide a considerable amount of useful information and raise questions that need to be answered, especially in the Joplin R-8 School District.

Acuity Tests

For instance, the C. J. Huff/Angie Besendorfer regime invested nearly $50,000 a year in Acuity tests. These were practice tests devised by the company that makes the MAP tests, and at one point they were given eight times a year, taking several weeks out of the school calendar that could have been used for instruction.

Not only were the tests given that often, but soon they were creating practice tests for the practice tests and those who did not do well on those were given extra work, often doing the same kinds of standardized test practice.

I participated in numerous meetings in which district officials pushed the idea of having curriculum revolve around those tests.

Math and communication arts teachers were frequently pulled out of class so they could grade Acuity tests or put the data from those into the computer. Other times, we were pulled out of class and forced to interpret what this data meant and how we could use it to improve our test scores.

And during all of those meetings, the students were "learning" from substitute teachers.

What were the results of this madness?

MAP scores have gone down in the district ever since Acuity was implemented, or for that matter ever since C. J. Huff and Angie Besendorfer arrived in Joplin.

We were told at the beginning of this that scores would go down initially, but we would soon see dramatic increases.. When that did not take place, the spin changed, and the tests became "unfair" and not indicative of how our schools were doing.

No matter that every other school in Missouri was having to deal with MAP, Joplin was the only one around complaining that it was not fair.

Teachers Pulled from Classrooms

Each year when test results were issued, administration came down harder on teachers, indicating that only teachers, and not administration, played a part in creating low test scores. More professional development, if it could truly be called that, centered around ways to improve students' test-taking techniques, ways to game the testing system, and of course, how to use data that was almost impossible to interpret in any rational way.

Teachers were constantly being pulled out of classrooms. I was teaching a tested area, but one year I was pulled out of class 16 days for professional development. I thought that was bad until I learned during my final year of teaching that our highly successful eighth grade math teacher at East Middle School had been pulled out more than 20 days and there was still time to go before the tests were given.

That would seem to be an issue that should be discussed in a board of education campaign and indeed, successful candidate Dr. Debbie Fort brought it up during the candidate forum, noting she had a teacher pulled out of her classroom (she was principal at Irving Elementary) for 60 days. That was the only mention. No one ever held the board or the administration's feet to the fire about why this was being done.

There have been times when half of the teaching staff has been pulled out of district buildings and one thing teachers learn quickly- when that many teachers are gone, not only will less learning take place in the rooms with substitutes, no matter how good the lesson plan that is left for them, but it also has an effect on the other teachers. The more substitute teachers you have, the more behavioral problems you have.

And with all of these people going to meetings, being fed, often having their way paid on seminars or trips, plus the cost of paying substitute teachers, you are throwing away thousands of dollars with no positive return.

Students need teachers in order for their educational experience to be successful. For some reason, that idea has never taken hold with the Huff/Besendorfer administration.

The Poor Treatment of Teachers

You also have a problem when you have approximately 300 teachers who have left the school district in the past three years, many of them among the best teachers the district had to offer.

With the administration's current emphasis on allowing students to find their way with teachers standing by as guides and telling them to Google for whatever information they need, teachers are not being allowed to teach. Especially at the elementary level, it is reaching the point where everything teachers do is being carefully scripted so that administration has more control. That approach has not benefited the students. It has also driven many excellent teachers out of the district.

Teachers have also been negatively affected by the lack of discipline at the schools. Principals are under orders to keep referrals down so that state statistics will show just how wonderful the behavior is at the Joplin Schools, so they begin coming up with different levels of referrals. As I have noted before, in my last year at East, we were required to have eight classroom referrals for students before they could be sent to the principal or assistant principal. Even then, there was often no discipline administered, just talks and promises that things would get better.

We were told that after the eight classroom referrals that we should send the students to the office with each additional referral. That stopped when we were told not to send them down so that we could give the principal's talk or offer of one lunchroom detention an opportunity to work.

Teachers are also provided with lists of actions that should result in students being sent to the office and actions that should be handled in the classroom. Many of the actions that are now considered to be classroom would have resulted in an automatic trip to the principal just a few years ago.

What happens when you have this lack of discipline is that younger teachers are afraid to send students to the office and behavior takes place that hurts the learning process. It also increases the chances that these younger teachers are going to get out of teaching...or get out of Joplin.

It also is unfair to the majority of the students who are there to learn and cannot understand why their classmates are being allowed to get away with so much.

The Poverty Situation

While educational "reformers" piously insist that it is not true, poverty does play a role in learning. If the children's families do not have money, do not have books in the home, do not have access to internet, it does make a difference.

It does not mean that the students do not learn or are not capable of learning. Far from it.

But any time you are examining standardized test results, it will become obvious that students from schools where there is more poverty are nearly always going to have lower scores. That is obvious in Joplin's results and it has been that way since long before C. J. Huff and Angie Besendorfer arrived. The Bright Futures program,when you remove its local excesses and get down to its core, has had a positive effect, but the idea of providing a stable educational environment inside the schools seems to be something that has been foreign to the Huff Administration.

Only three principals remain from the group that served Joplin when C. J. Huff arrived. Many of those who were shown the door were top-notch principals and were replaced by lower-level yes men and yes woman, some with little or no organizational abilityand no ability at all to inspire, but who would never question any edict from upper administration, even in a respectful manner.

The same revolving door, as noted earlier, has applied to teachers. It is important to have new, eager teachers in schools at the beginning of each year, but it is just as important to have veteran teachers, often just as eager, to show them the way, to help them get through the pitfalls of that inaugural year, and to provide a stable environment for children who desperately need it.

During the years of the Huff Administration, everything has been about each new program that has been started, all with the implied and often-stated message that the people in Joplin were never worried about education until C. J. Huff arrived and led us out of the darkness.

Stability is the best thing that C. J. Huff could have done for our schools, especially for those in the poverty-stricken areas of Joplin. The only stability that has existed in the Joplin R-8 School District since he arrived from Eldon is that he is going to be the center of everything and everyone else is disposable. When you have that kind of attitude, the ones who are the most damaged are the ones he always says he is doing everything for- the kids.

Questions That Need to be Asked

When readers are examining the MAP results and how they affect Joplin, there are questions that need to be asked and no one, especially the media, has been asking them.

1. Why are scores in Carl Junction and Webb City so high compared to Joplin? Is it a matter of people choosing to locate in those communities just to be in those school systems? Does it involve lesser poverty than you see in Joplin? 

2. How many Joplin parents are opting to move their children to other schools? We have seen the publicized instance of former R-8 Board of Education member Dawn Sticklen who moved her child from Joplin to Webb City and then resigned form the board. Many of my former students are now in Carl Junction, Webb City, Carthage, and Neosho, and these are students who were still attending Joplin schools after the tornado. I also have seen many of my former students transferring to Thomas Jefferson and College Heights and more than before are home schooling. Why are parents pulling their students out of Joplin schools? Is it discipline, is it education, is it the excesses of the Huff Administration? There is still the question of if Joplin's 21st Century learning is not negatively impacting students by removing lecturing and nearly all teacher-led lessons, when those are going to be the type of classes they will have most often if they continue to colleges or universities.

3. If we begin paying and evaluating teachers based on student scores on standardized tests, as Amendment 3 calls for, are we going to end up unfairly punishing teachers who work in areas with higher poverty and are we going to have a harder time finding teachers who are willing to teach in those schools, or continue teaching there when jobs in other districts open. Are we condemning the students in the poverty areas to having inexperienced teachers year after year after year?

MAP results are worth examining and the most important thing they do is to enable us to raise these questions. Hopefully, as time goes on, we will be able to answer some of them and use those answers to improve education in Joplin and the surrounding area.

The first thing we have to do, however, is ask the questions, and eliminate business as usual.