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Grade inflation adds to woes, especially in middle schools: Taxpayers ultimately shoulder cost in terms of remedial ed, a work force with weak skills(Arizona Daily Star, The (Tucson) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 12--More than a quarter of middle and high schools in the Tucson area's largest districts are awarding passing grades students may not be earning, an Arizona Daily Star investigation found. The 10-month analysis of millions of student grades found dozens of schools in which failure rates on state tests were greater than the rate of students who failed corresponding classes in English and math. The gaps indicate grade inflation, experts said, meaning students received higher grades than their performance merited. At the same time, students at those schools were being moved on to the next grade level yearly even when they didn't earn it, the Star investigation also showed. The analysis showed this practice, known as social promotion, is prevalent throughout Tucson. Middle schools showed the clearest evidence of grade inflation, particularly in the Tucson Unified School District, the city's largest. At Naylor Middle School, for example, about 9 percent of eighth-graders failed English courses last year. Meanwhile, 59 percent failed the AIMS reading test and 40 percent failed the writing component. The findings worry educators, civic leaders and economists, who say the long-term result of grade inflation will be even more problematic than that posed by social promotion alone. If students aren't learning what they're supposed to, the end result will be an unprepared and unskilled work force that could hinder companies and prompt businesses eyeing Tucson as a home to look elsewhere, further weakening the economy, local business leaders said. Officials at Pima Community College already are seeing the effects as thousands of students enroll in remedial classes yearly. "Sure, they've graduated from high school, but why?" asked David Irwin, a PCC spokesman. "It wasn't based on competency." Critics of AIMS, or Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards, and other standards-based benchmarks have assailed "high-stakes testing" as an ineffective way to gauge student performance. Tucson educators say there cannot be complete alignment between AIMS and letter grades and dismiss the notion that grade inflation explains the difference. "The scope of the AIMS test is one shot that's supposed to canvass your understanding of subject matter," said TUSD Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer. "It has nowhere near the depth of day-to-day curriculum that the teacher is talking about." At the same time, Pfeuffer, and other critics, say AIMS standards are too low and the test has become easier in recent years. But with the appearance of inflation, grades -- earned or not -- fall under suspicion. "This goes to the problem: How do we know what fair classroom grades look like?" asked Jay Greene, head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Middle-school grade gap Student performance on AIMS falls into four categories. The Star combined the failing categories, which measure the number of students who "approached" or "fell far below" standards. The investigation focused on eighth and 10th grade and compared the number of students who failed one or more courses in English or math with how well that class did on AIMS. Letter grades for English were compared with AIMS reading and writing results. Among the findings: --Districts across the board showed some evidence of grade inflation. Catalina Foothills and Vail showed the narrowest disparities -- suggesting the least grade inflation -- while TUSD and Sunnyside showed the greatest. --Middle schools, on average, showed much wider disparity between letter grades and AIMS test scores than high schools. TUSD's Naylor, Maxwell and Wakefield middle schools had some of the largest gaps in math scores, all about 50 percent. For example, nearly 20 percent of Wakefield's eighth-grade class last year -- 35 students -- received one or more F's in a math class, while 71 percent of the class failed the math portion of AIMS. Meanwhile only 3 percent of the class -- six students -- received one or more F's in an English class, but 55 percent of the class failed the reading portion of AIMS and 45 percent failed the writing portion. --High schools in several districts, conversely, showed narrower margins between letter grades and test scores. Nearly 14 percent of the 2007 sophomore class at TUSD's Sahuaro High School -- 71 students -- received at least one F in an English class, while 15 percent of the class failed the reading portion of AIMS and 13 percent failed the writing portion. Most high schools also are more stringent with grades, it appears, based on the comparison of failure rates and AIMS scores. At Sabino High School last year, 8 percent more 10th-graders failed math courses than failed math AIMS. Eight other middle and high schools showed similar findings for math scores, and 12 for English. --The gap between achievement in courses and test scores is the widest in math -- in every part of the city, from Sunnyside to Marana. --Most AIMS failure rates have dropped significantly during the last six years. In 2002, many middle and high schools showed failures in the 60th and 70th percentiles, while in 2007 the number dropped by double digits. Still, more than a dozen schools showed AIMS failure rates higher than 50 percent. Further investigation of grade inflation in Tucson-area schools is warranted, said Greene, the education-reform professor. "These findings suggest that classroom grades are inflated, of course assuming that the standards for passing the state test is not unreasonably difficult," he wrote in an e-mail. There have been many grade-inflation studies across the country, he said. For example, in suburban school districts in California, researchers found inflated grades helped students get into college. There are other reasons teachers or administrators may inflate grades, he said. "In general, it reduces conflict and reduces the workload on teachers," Greene said. "A student with a higher classroom grade is less likely to complain. The parents are less likely to complain and less justification is necessary for a high grade than a low grade. "A third motivating factor would be that everyone deludes themselves and others that everything is going well." The grade debate For decades, educators, policymakers and others have debated the use of standardized test scores versus letter grades as a measure of achievement. Experts argue that minority and poor students perform at lower rates on standardized tests than their Anglo and wealthier counterparts. Letter grades, educators say, take into account factors that aren't measured by tests, such as productivity, attention, effort and ability to understand the subject matter. But the issue of grade inflation undermines the use, and usefulness, of letter grades. "Course grades are a thing that is delicately negotiated between teacher and student, and the latter's parents," Gene V. Glass, a professor of education at Arizona State University, said in an e-mail. "They inflate for the same reason the currency inflates, because people have the need to feel that year after year things are always getting better." The best way to detect grade inflation would be looking at instances in which there is a large variation between grades and standardized-test scores, said Lorrie Shepard, dean of the school of education at the University of Colorado-Boulder. "This is a whole issue nationally. When the state assessments are compared to the national assessment, it's the same thing," Shepard said. Tom Horne, Arizona's superintendent of public instruction, said he's aware student letter grades and AIMS scores don't match and believes grade inflation is occurring. "That's one of the purposes of the AIMS test," he said, "to disclose where the teachers' grades are too easy. If teachers uniformly imposed high standards in their grading, there would be no need for the AIMS test." However, there is no requirement that local or state education officials compare letter grades with AIMS results. Starting in 2006, students failing AIMS were able to augment their scores with letter grades, tutoring and the number of times they'd taken the test. The change prompted concerns of grade inflation at Tucson's largest school district. "When teachers knew a student's grade could affect their AIMS scores, I asked principal supervisors and principals and department heads to be on guard because I felt the state was going to be very interested whether grade inflation took place," TUSD Superintendent Pfeuffer said. "I said I absolutely did not want data to show that has happened. I don't think it has to any great extent, but I think we've always had this subjective issue of grade versus a standardized test." Local schools, state standards Local educators remain adamant that AIMS scores don't fully represent student ability. "A grade is the reflection of a student as to his academic progress, not just a snapshot of the student in regards to a test," said Sahuarita Assistant Superintendent Manuel Valenzuela. Other districts have been openly questioning standardized tests. Catalina Foothills has engaged in a protracted dispute with state and federal officials because No Child Left Behind doesn't allow special-education students to use calculators and other help on assessment tests, even though they're allowed to do so during class. "The purpose of AIMS is not to give us a diagnostic tool. It's to compare students across the state," Catalina Foothills Superintendent Mary Kamerzell said. "It has a political value more than anything." Flowing Wells Associate Superintendent David Baker said high rates of failure occurred soon after AIMS was introduced because courses at Flowing Wells High School and Junior High School weren't aligned with the test's academic standards, especially in math, and there was little test preparation. David Scott, director of accountability and research for TUSD, said there should be a high correlation with letter grades and AIMS scores, but there's no guarantee -- because AIMS is not comprehensive. "It begs the question: Should you retain students if they get a 'falls-far-below' rating on the AIMS test?" he asked. While adults debate the validity of letter grades, standardized test scores and student assessment, young people have a different experience. Until AIMS became mandatory for graduation, some students blew it off as inconsequential. There are typical teenage explanations for failure, too. "I would always get sleepy a lot," said Mark Riesgo, 13. He said he's had trouble concentrating during the reading portion of AIMS. Riesgo, a seventh-grader at Sahuarita Middle School, used to have trouble paying attention in class when it was time to read, he said. "I would read the whole paragraph and as soon as I got to the questions, I would forget," he said. Tangible effects While some educators say social promotion teaches students they don't have to work to move on to the next grade level, grade inflation, others say, gives a false sense of accomplishment. The illusion of merit is even more serious after high school. Officials at Pima Community College are seeing the effects of unprepared students firsthand. In 2006, the most recent year for which data are available, nearly 5,400 high-school students took the math assessment at Pima -- and 79 percent failed. A little more than 5,300 students took the writing assessment and 48 percent failed. A similar number of students took the reading assessment and 32 percent failed. That fall, 4,243 Pima students took one remedial class. More than 1,600 took two or more. The number of overall students enrolled in remedial classes at Pima has held steady for at least five years, during which time nearly 40,000 recent high-school graduates have gone on to the college. The effects of poor K-12 education directly affect Tucson's economy, too. In its economic blueprint, Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities Inc. listed educational excellence among its five key areas. Part of the blueprint, by extension, calls for an economy that provides a competitive, "world-class" work force and to develop more higher-paying jobs for the region. "The opportunities and challenges are clear," the report stated. For the Tucson area to be competitive, it must draw an "abundance" of skilled, highly educated workers. Just as better education makes for a better economy, experts say, the opposite also is true. In a 2007 report by the Washington, D.C.-based Alliance for Excellent Education, experts said Arizona would save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in crime, healthcare and remedial-education costs if about 28,000 students hadn't dropped out last year. As a college professor, Greene has witnessed the problems poorly prepared students face in their first year of college. "It's quite a shock when eventually the rubber hits the road and people have to perform in the world," he said. "If you've been told you are wonderful all the time and you're shocked to discover you can't quite do what you're supposed to do, that's quite a blow." Return to the social promotion index page to read more stories PDF: Middle school grade inflation, 2006-07 About the series Sunday: Despite failing basic classes, thousands of local students are promoted to the next grade every year. Today: Local students who manage to earn passing grades may not deserve them, tests show. Tuesday: Solving the problems may require systemic change, but the future of the region depends upon it. Send us your questions Do you want to know more about the project? Have questions about our findings? E-mail us your questions at [email protected], and we'll do our best to explain. Please keep questions as concise as possible. The best queries will run as part of the package in Tuesday's paper. Wednesday chat with Superintendent Horne The education chief of Arizona, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, will chat online with readers on Wednesday about social promotion and what should be done about it. Go to azstarnet.com/ socialpromotion to submit questions. And check back at noon Wednesday to read what his answers are. Find more on StarNet Dig deeper into the subject with online-only content at azstarnet.com/ socialpromotion Online database See how your school fares in our searchable database of all schools in the Star analysis Video reports Watch videos of students and teachers at the heart of the issue Slide show Watch an overview of the package and see bonus images Other stories Find online-only extras, including a deeper look at the role ELL students play in this issue, links to our experts' work and documents from the Tucson Unified School District and the U.S. Department of Education. --Contact reporter George B. Sanchez at 573-4195 or at [email protected]. To see more of The Arizona Daily Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.azstarnet.com. Copyright (c) 2008, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |