Table Of Content

Case Study: The New York Performance Standards Consortium Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook The story of the Institute for Health Professions at Cambria Heights illustrates the positive impact of using performance assessments rather than relying on the state Regents exams. MY PATH AWAY FROM THE entered fifth grade. Before that, I had TEST (GARETH ROBINSON) attended a parochial school and then Adelphi Elementary, a public school Iw as born in Port of Spain, in Prince George’s County where my Trinidad and Tobago, West mom moved us to pursue a better life. Indies. When I was three, my Although I had been accepted to the mother, brother, and I immigrated to gifted and talented program at the United States, joining my grand- Adelphi, my mother had not given up mother and two uncles in a on her dream of an independent one-bedroom apartment in Martin school for me. I remember missing Luther King Towers, a public housing school so I could be tested and visit development in northwest Washing- different independent schools. ton, D.C. My grandmother and mother worked for a wealthy family I was excited to start Sidwell, because whose children attended an indepen- I had seen during my visit that the dent school, and soon my mother school had so many things that became determined that her sons, Adelphi did not. Beyond the physical too, should attend an independent plant, everyone seemed to know school. everyone, and everyone I met seemed very interested in me as a person. Ultimately, my older brother was Reflecting back on it, I believe that accepted at Sidwell Friends, a Quaker this was because the school’s commu- school now known as the school nity was built on the Quaker core favored by the children of the value that an “inner light” exists in Washington elite; I joined him when I all people. Gareth Robinson is the founding principal of the Institute for Health Professions at Cambria Heights. Ann Cook is the executive director of the New York Performance Standards Consortium. 14 Annenberg Institute for School Reform Two things stand out from my time at where my students would engage in Sidwell: first, many of my teachers did large-group conversation. During an not follow the textbooks, and second, eleventh-grade unit on The Adventures we spent a substantial amount of time of Huckleberry Finn, I would ask my discussing material. Ms. Reinthaler, to students to categorize and compare this day my favorite teacher, jumped what happened to Huck when he was around the math book in unpredictable on the shore versus when he was on ways and was obsessed more with the river. I was often met with silence, what we were thinking than with the or “Mister, why don’t you just tell us answer we wrote down. We were more the answer so we can go on?” I was likely to go outside and use a cigarette also astonished that my kids lacked lighter shaped like a parabola or use a literacy and writing skills. ruler sticking out of the board to Despite my belief in the importance of demonstrate the z-axis than we were to discussion, feedback from my assistant do every problem in the textbook. Ms. principal and colleagues required that I Reinthaler’s class created a long-lasting change my practice. I was told that impression on me. “for the sake of the kids,” my lessons Sidwell’s classes were interdisciplinary. needed to be connected to the New In English, for example, we spent York Regents exams, statewide classes analyzing literature and looking standardized tests required for high for connections between a particular school graduation. The teacher literary work and related social topics. regarded by my assistant principal as We looked at what The Canterbury the best English teacher at the school Tales had to say about the role of started every class with an exercise women during Chaucer’s time; reading taken directly from the exam: provid- Native Son led to a tearful discussion ing a “critical lens” quote for students on race relations at the school. Science to interpret, agree with or not, and classes, beginning with biology, provide two pieces of literature that included labs and the use of Excel and supported the interpretation. I faced a Word to write lab reports because dilemma: I believed that I needed to “that is what scientists did.” teach my students the way I was taught, but I understood that failing to prepare my students for the Regents Teaching to the tests exams would amount to professional When I first entered the classroom as a malpractice and prevent kids from teacher in the New York City (NYC) graduating. public schools, I expected to teach my During the next stops of my NYC students the same way I had been teaching career – which included a taught at Sidwell. That approach didn’t large comprehensive high school with a work. The world of teaching and learn- low graduation rate and a history of ing in the schools where I was assigned violence, a struggling middle school in was drastically different from the elite one of Brooklyn’s poorest neighbor- world of Sidwell Friends. Not apples hoods, and a small high school that and oranges different. Apples and selected its students in part based on rhubarb different. standardized test scores – my teaching During my first two years, I taught at a centered around the role of standard- School Under Registration Review – ized tests. While teaching at the identified by the New York State struggling large comprehensive high Education Department (NYSED) as a school, which would eventually be school most in need of improvement – closed after being named one of the where I struggled to create a classroom most persistently violent in the state, I Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook VUE 2017, no. 46 15 was told by colleagues to make sure mindset of test preparation among that I mentioned the Regent’s exam New York teachers. I showed a video during an observation or the principal of a Living Environment class (the might rate the lesson unsatisfactorily. state-required biology course), where a When presenting students with context teacher used an excerpt from a science for a literary text, I created read-aloud fiction novel to facilitate a discussion. passages on which my students were to When I asked my teachers how this take notes and answer questions. All video could serve as a model for the my tests and exams were mini versions work that we would do with our of the Regents exams and featured the students, the Living Environment critical lens essay. teacher asked, “How am I supposed to spend several days discussing this book While I did my best to avoid teaching when I have to cover the Living to the test, the reality was that I Environment curriculum so the kids became focused on making sure that have a chance on the Regents exam?” the exam would not prevent my students from attending college. When Similar complaints came from teachers my students graduated, I always in other departments. “It would be counseled them to make sure they great,” they argued, “to focus on visited their new college’s writing specific historical time periods or core center, since I knew that many of them mathematical concepts,” but the need graduated from high school only able to ensure that our kids passed the to write a critical lens essay. exams was the proverbial elephant in the room. The very same dilemma I experienced as a teacher would become Creating a school where we would not the defining challenge in my new role teach to the test as a school leader. After spending twelve years teaching This situation would change when one English, I seized an opportunity to of our school’s coaches connected us create and serve as principal of a new with the New York Performance high school that would connect Standards Consortium (see sidebar). students to a possible career, but also This introduction led my school’s focused on classroom discussion. I founding staff to make a decision that partnered with the Institute for Student would fundamentally change the Achievement (ISA) because there was a trajectory of our school’s development. philosophical connection between my vision for my proposed school and ISA’s emphasis on career and technical IMPACT OF IHPCH’S education. The collaboration resulted TRANSITION TO THE in the Institute for Health Professions CONSORTIUM (ANN COOK at Cambria Heights (IHPCH), a high & GARETH ROBINSON) school that opened in 2013 with 56 ninth-grade students and has grown to Becoming a Consortium school has 420 students in four grades. had a particularly powerful impact on the role teachers play at IHPCH, and During summer professional develop- faculty ownership of the process is ment with the founding teachers, I regarded as critically important. To stressed that student inquiry, interdisci- support teachers in the transition, we plinary connections, and discussion attended summer workshops held by were essential to developing the school the Consortium, visited and observed I envisioned. Although I had hired Consortium teacher practice, and teachers with this vision in mind, it participated in the Consortium’s proved very difficult to change the 16 Annenberg Institute for School Reform HISTORY OF THE NEW YORK PERFORMANCE STANDARDS CONSORTIUM (ANN COOK) The Consortium was created by a waiver Overall, the Consortium schools have a in 1995 by the New York State Educa- lower dropout rate than the city schools. tion Commissioner. The waiver allowed Statistics from the New York City Consortium schools to graduate their Department of Education (NYC DOE) students using a system of performance- show that 83 percent of Consortium based assessments (called PBATs or students met or exceeded NYC DOE portfolio assessments) in lieu of four of targets for enrollment in college a full the five Regents exams. eighteen months after graduation, compared with 59 percent of students in Today, nearly 30,000 students attend the rest of the city.2 the Consortium’s thirty-nine public high schools in New York City, Rochester, and A Spencer Foundation–funded study of Ithaca. Comparative data have demon- teachers who moved from test-based strated these students’ success, with schools to Consortium schools found particularly significant results for that teachers in the performance-based four- and six-year high school gradua- assessment environment strongly believe tion rates for students of color.1 NYC they “learn more about their student’s Consortium schools serve a higher academic needs” and are able to “teach percentage of African American, Latino, more creatively” and teach “more English language learner (ELL), special socially just” and “culturally relevant” needs, and low-income students than curriculum. Researchers also reported the city’s public schools as a whole, and that teachers in their second year of Consortium students enter high school teaching in performance-based assess- with lower math and English test results ment schools felt their students were than city-wide averages. Yet these same “more engaged in school” and that students graduate at higher rates than using PBATs made “their students more the city average, with a four-year interested in learning” (Hantzopoulos, graduation rate for ELL students that is Rivera-McCucthen & Tyner-Mullings 31 percentage points higher than the 2016). city average. For more information on the Consortium, see http://performanceassessment.org. annual conference. The main form of challenges. For example, one of support I gave my teachers was IHPCH’s graduation-level science freedom to experiment with both the PBATs is a project where students “what” and the “how” in their engineer a catapult using their knowl- teaching. Our emphasis on inquiry- edge of projectile motion and mass. based teaching and learning and Science teachers collaborated to ensure discussion-based classrooms resulted in that in physics classes, students would a strong focus on pedagogy and gain experience contextualizing a positive rates of teacher retention. design problem, critiquing the process, Instead of narrowly focusing on testing a design prototype, evaluating anticipated questions on a standardized test, IHPCH teachers plan curricula for 1 See the online version of this article at students that ensure that interim assess- http://vue.annenberginstitute.org/issues/46 ments (pre-PBATs) are aligned to the for a table with these data. same skills students will need to 2 See individual school data at http://schools. complete the more complex PBAT nyc.gov/Accountability/tools/review/ default.htm. Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook VUE 2017, no. 46 17 the design, and finally, defending their for the Regents exam; empowering work in an oral presentation. because teachers have created classes that engage students in ways that are The transition toward performance- not possible when the Regents exam is based assessment and away from the summative assessment. Compare, Regents exams has been both humbling for example, a global history course and empowering for IHPCH teachers: description offered at a nearby high humbling because any instructional or school with one offered at IHPCH. curricular problems could not be blamed on the need to prepare students NEW YORK STATE IHPCH COURSE REGENTS COURSE Global History Get Up Stand Up, Global Humanities Semester 3: A survey course roughly Semesters 3 & 4: Get Up Stand Up is a covering the years 1500–1920, focusing performance-based assessment class that on the nineteenth century. Topics include focuses on revolutions and human rights the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, through a study of the impact of the World War I, and the rise of totalitarian- Enlightenment on the concept of freedom. ism. Students will use a combination of The course explores how these ideas cooperative learning, discussions, and influenced the political revolutions of the critical thinking to better understand how eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. the forces of industrialization, nationalism, Students complete a case study of the and imperialism combined to create the Holocaust as an example of governmental modern world. abuse of power and subsequently focus on human rights violations that have occurred Semester 4: This course focuses on the since 1945. twentieth century from World War II to the present. Topics include the Cold War, The course requires that students complete post-colonial independence movements a research paper and make a presentation. and contemporary global issues. Impact on students and parents building evidence-based arguments, oral and written communication, After the school’s first year, which had subject-area competence in health care, included students taking Regents innovation, creativity, collaboration, exams, the staff announced that the revision, and goal setting. Unlike school would be joining the Consor- standardized tests, PBATs also allow tium and making a transition away for instructional coherence and from the Regents exams. In presenting differentiation in the classroom. this decision to parents and students, the staff emphasized that many of the The initial reaction of the students to skills staff wished students to develop, the transition was a mini celebration. practice, and strengthen could be They were excited that we had chosen realized through performance-based what they thought was an “easier” assessment, including analysis, model- path to graduation that did not involve ing possible solutions, strategizing, the Regents exams. We cautioned 18 Annenberg Institute for School Reform students that this work would be Utilizing the Consortium’s student difficult and even included the chal- focused, practitioner-directed system lenging nature of PBATs in our of assessment doesn’t immediately recruiting talks to parents. Although transform classrooms into dynamic prospective parents said they recog- centers of learning, but, crucially, it nized similarities between the PBATs allows us to shift our expectations of and undergraduate or graduate work, children from test-takers to active they were concerned. They simply learners, showing that when given the could not believe that colleges would tools and the opportunity, all students accept their children without Regents can have the opportunity to engage in exam scores. After all, as graduates of the level of discourse that I first New York State high schools, most of experienced at Sidwell Friends. our parents had themselves taken Regents exams. In order to better understand the impact of our assess- REFERENCE ment system on our graduates, we intend to create an email alumni group Hantzopoulos, M., R. Rivera-McCucthen, so that we can track their successes and and A. Tyner-Mullings. 2016. “In Transi- struggles in college, which will provide tion: How PBATs Shape Instruction and us with more concrete evidence for School Culture.” Unpublished draft of future discussions with parents. study in progress, funded by the Spencer During our school’s second full year, Foundation and Vassar College. we implemented the use of presentations of learning, which evolved into pre-PBAT work. During these presentations, many students asked if we could go back to being a Regents school “ because “the presentations of learning were asking them to do too much reading, writing, and discussion.” “ One student said that although our interim There were tears in the hallway and cries of “How can we get all of this assessments (PBATs) were more work than work done?” After our physics graduation-level PBAT was given to Regents, they were more interesting and our first graduating class in January 2016, one student who had failed both meaningful – more than simply answering the Algebra I and Living Environment Regents exams but passed the physics questions on paper. PBAT said that although PBATs were more work than Regents, they were more interesting and meaningful because the assessment, an engineering project, was more than simply answering questions on paper. The transformation from a Regents- driven school to one focused on inquiry-based teaching, discussion, in-depth investigation, and oral presentations is certainly a challenge for both students and staff, but I believe we are on the right track. Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook VUE 2017, no. 46 19