Small Bites Friday Five 9-10-21:
20-30m – Skim the 51 page Learning Loss handbook from the Human Restoration Project. If you have more time, read it in its entirety over the next few days and make an action plan for implementing your new knowledge.
15-20m – Read and reflect on the information and questions on pages 11-17 of the above mentioned Learning Loss Handbook. Consider whether or not your answers to the questions on page 17 are in alignment with your daily practice.
10-15m – Comb through the Brown Center report on American testing trends. Use the information to inform your practice–and your activism.
5-10m – Read this article from Augsburg professors Jennifer Diaz, Ph.D. and Joaquin Muñoz, Ph.D quoted in the blog below and follow the hyperlinks.
0-5m – Read this article from Americorp’s City Year on why “learning loss” is not the best term.
The Data Monster
This school year, and every one after it, comes down to what you believe. Either you believe that children are our future and that they will make their way in spite of , or maybe because of all that they have endured; of you believe the Data Monster who tells you that the ‘years of loss’ they have experienced during the pandemic must be caught up, or all will be lost. If you believe that, than you’ve lost faith in your kids. Worse, you’ve lost faith in humanity.
First, I assure you, I am not a naive optimist who believes that “learning loss” has no impact. I just know that norms on standardized tests is not the only measure of learning. The flexibility and life skills this generation has learned are unparalleled. And the skills they’ve learned surviving wildfires, insurrections, hurricanes and tundra like freezes without power will help them through life’s challenges like no amount of Algebra II would. Although, surprisingly, the pandemic even gave us some math gains.
Yes, there is impact, and yes, in some populations the numbers are terrifying. But how valid and reliable are the numbers?
Testing Reliability and Validity
Standardized tests designed for the learning achieved in 2019 are today neither reliable nor valid. Reliability refers to how dependably or consistently a test measures a characteristic. If a person takes the test again, will he or she get a similar test score, or a much different score? So, if a student from a similar demographic and a similar home and school environment with a similar IQ, with the same grades were to be taught by the same teacher today, chances are, that student would not score similarly on the test.
Further, test validity is the extent to which a test accurately measures what it is supposed to measure. SInce every educational testing instrument currently measures knowledge acquired during 187ish routine filled days balanced by consistent–or at least predictably inconsistent–home environments, they are not designed for measuring pandemic era learning. Why are we measuring what would have been as though we are measuring what is?
Look at it like a ruler with two sides. We are no longer measuring inches, it’s time to turn the ruler around and use another unit of measure. For educators and administrators that means pushing back against the narrative that says our students have lost something.
Augsburg professors Jennifer Diaz, Ph.D. and Joaquin Muñoz, Ph.D., put it this way, “Perhaps unintentionally, “learning loss” demonizes some family and community experiences, while maintaining oppressive, dominant race and class-based views of education. Could something other than school-based, oppressive structures (like testing, in particular) become indicative of students’ learning?”
New Measures for a New Day
It’s time to fight back. Think less about getting kids caught up to the 2019 standard and think more about giving them rich learning experiences today. I understand that our most vulnerable populations will not be where we expected them to be at graduation. But that expectation is from another time and the college and job market will be flooded with a global population in the same situation. We don’t need to catch our kids up, we need our testing developers to catch up. Or we need to find new measures altogether. And as we catch up and realize that there will be a new standard; that there is a new standard, we can begin to teach from the place where we realize how much our kids have gained. After all, they are surviving a Pandemic and I have faith that they will be ok.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test_validity
https://hr-guide.com/Testing_and_Assessment/Reliability_and_Validity.htm
Enjoy your coffee!
