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About a week ago, I noticed a one-line notice on the reverse side of my daughter's 5th grade newsletter letting us parents know that COGAT testing results were available if a parent sends in a written request.
I don't always read these newsletters, especially at the end of the year when nothing is going on in the classroom anyway, but I read this one because I knew there was a field trip coming up that I'm chaperoning and I couldn't figure out the day it was on (I'm sure I'll get a couple more notices home about the field trip though).
However, I suspect this one line in a multi-page newsletter is all the notice most parents will get that 1 - IQ testing was done, 2- you need to make a written request for the results or you'll never see them.
It's even worse than that, because the notice only said "COGAT" and unless you know what that is, you wouldn't know that your child had an IQ test available. This feels dishonest to me. We are so worried about equity and down-playing of intelligence differences, that the school is going out of its way to make it difficult for parents to find out a piece of information that many will find valuable and helpful. But the school doesn't like IQ testing and they don't like kids being labeled "smart" so they try to hide the information and put up hurdles to getting it.
Well, I made my written request. Rather than just give me the results (which is all I wanted), I had to have a meeting with the principal where she would give me a copy. Another hurdle.
At the meeting, the principal expressed her amazement that my child's IQ score had risen 21 points in 2 years. She felt this was an indication of their fabulous job teaching her and of getting her to care about school.
I had a different take. My kid has a mild ADD diagnosis and hated 3rd grade. I think a distracted, bored kid doesn't do well on group tests. We've had lots of independent testing done recently, and shared all of that information with the principal, so this should not have come as a huge shock. I don't know what her IQ is, but I don't have a lot of confidence in the school's measurement system -- 21 points in 2 years? Something is wrong here. IQ doesn't shift that much no matter what you are doing in school.
Anyway, I thought it would be a good time to ask about class composition for next year (6th grade). They remain committed to heterogeneous classes with differentiation.
I made a pitch for clustering and flexible ability grouping. I decided to try Catherine's approach to forcing slow change -- I'm going to repeat "cluster" and "flexible ability grouping" at every opportunity and expound at length if given the opportunity.
I remarked -- the research is unequivocal. Flexible ability grouping boosts achievement for all students. Heterogeneous classrooms and differentiation have not worked.
Now I need to find the research. I've got some of it here, but I need to just keep chipping away at this. Clustering and flexible grouping will not solve all the problems (a better curriculum might help too), but it would be progress.
update - from Catherine
The La Salle post describing La Salle High School's "student assignment" policy may be a good place to start.
We're probably going to urge our own district to adopt La Salle's policy.
Tom Loveless' book on tracking is probably the best summary of the research; The War on Excellence also has a summary (I'll post some of it).
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17 comments:
gosh, you read my mind
I'm thinking about making this a focus of my efforts around here.
Christopher made the cut for earth science (thank God - one less battle to fight) but naturally the school managed to reject brainy kids whose best subject is science, may be headed for science careers - it's just the whole usual b*s in a school that rations accelerated courses.
Meanwhile the math placement b*s proceeds apace.
I just sent an email to a friend about this - I'm going to push for adoption of the La Salle High School approach.
Also, I'll start pulling the research together.
The main place to start in terms of a summary is Tom Loveless: The Tracking Wars.
However, Steve is correct that you never win on the basis of research.
You're going to need a political, parent-power argument, too.
I came up with what I think is a good line:
The La Salle approach (school does the placement, parent has an override) respects both parties.
La Salle respects the school's expertise in academics and student assignment.
It also respects the parent's expertise on his own child.
No school can know more about my child specifically than I can.
I wonder if the La Salle model can be modified for k-8? Because of the asynchronous development of many children, especially the differences between girl v. boy maturing, I think the emphasis in k-8 has to be on flexibility, not in permanent labeling of children.
Thanks for giving me 2 books to purchase and read. My summer reading pile is getting to be a tower already!
Lynn,
I had the same experience with the IQ testing. I didn't know what it was until my pediatric psychiatrist asked for it when he was diagnosing my oldest. My jaw hit the ground when I saw the number. I had no idea that they had given him an IQ test. They definitely never spoke of it.
After a couple of years and some meds, his new IQ score jumped roughly 20 points. The teachers were shocked. I think this happens more than they realize, especially with ADD kids.
I simply don't think the schools should impose their viewpoint on parents. The administrators have a right to their opinion and they can certainly argue that IQ scores are largely irrelevant if they like.
But parents care. I know parents that remember their children's APGAR scores. These things can give us some assurances that everything is going okay.
On the other hand, parents are often the first to notice a problem is developing -- an IQ score that seems out of whack for the child they see everyday is one way of beginning the process of understanding what is going on when things aren't going well.
The school's arrogant attitude that they know best and parents don't need to know their kids' IQ score simply adds to distrust level.
This kind of burying information is a long-standing strategy of schools, but its days are numbered.
That's because of the web. All it takes is a blogger or two per school, and all those gems are made public to all.
I urge anyone who likes to write to create a blog for your school. I envision more of this happening across the country.
There was once a strong imbalance of power concerning schools vs. taxpayers. But just as with business (bloggers spout off their opinions all the time about products, and searchers go looking for it), the web is the great leveler.
The COGAT scores are usually reported in percentile. Depending on the gain, a 21% increase in percentile is only equivilent to a 0 point gain of IQ points...
See http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx for a chart of equivilent scores.
for example.
49.9999999782% = 100 IQ
72.5746935061% = 109 IQ
22 percentile jump for 9 points IQ.
IQ variation is extremely common in children. They will firm up more, the older the child gets.
When in doubt, I would tend to trust the more recent scores as being the more accurate score.
The La Salle model is quite flexible - but definitely look at the Joplin Plan.
La Salle doesn't have "tracks" in the sense of everyone goes into A TRACK - it has 4 levels of each course.
Apparently it's common for their students to be in different "tracks" for different subjects.
The school's arrogant attitude that they know best and parents don't need to know their kids' IQ score simply adds to distrust level.
I see it all as being directly analogous to the way physicians used to function.
Withholding information from patients was a big part of the power imbalance.
Physicians who knew their patients had terminal cancer didn't tell them, that kind of thing.
I had a fascinating email from my attorney penpal (a member of Beyond TERC - I hope she'll get around to posting here).
She said that "student assignment," which is the legal term for what we're talking about (legal or policy term; don't know which) is always kept vague so as to prevent parents from mixing in too much.
It was interesting, because this attorney works for school boards and saw this as a normal state of affairs.
Schools routinely obfuscate the grounds on which they make academic decisions concerning our kids!
And this is normal - and consciously done.
My high school bases Honors decisions on writing. (Along with a teacher rec or two, I guess...)
Number one, writing can't be assessed objectively; there are years of research showing this.
Number two, because of privacy concerns you can't be shown the other kids' writing - you can't see evidence that in fact your kid isn't as good a writer as the kids who got in.
Number three, writing doesn't predict anything reading comprehension doesn't predict.
Number four, the K-8 grades don't teach the kids how to write!
The whole thing is nuts.
And I agree.
The days of intentional obfuscation are drawing to a close.
I find it all very disingenuous. The administrators claim that the IQ is not important, not relevant to what is going on in the classroom, but its always been pretty clear that the teachers have different expectations, it's an attitude you pick up at conferences and in assignments.
As for Rory's comment, it wasn't the % that changed 21 points, it was the actual IQ score.
I find that alone to be pretty helpful information. My daughter clearly does much better academically when we reduce the distractions.
Number two, because of privacy concerns you can't be shown the other kids' writing - you can't see evidence that in fact your kid isn't as good a writer as the kids who got in.
Privacy? Really? How quaint. In our school, the 5th graders have to blog their English assignments. We (students and parents) can all see every student's writing. No such thing as privacy. Kids are required to read their work in class. Student work is posted on their lockers by their teachers (for all to read). Students exchange assignments to grade. Privacy? Nah, they have to all wear it all on their sleeve.
I made a pitch for clustering and flexible ability grouping.
Check out "Re-forming Gifted Education" by Karen Rogers. She evaluates all the studies.
Reforming Gifted Education is also good at explaining which kids are better for acceleration and/or enrichment. She goes into the many different approaches that schools take with their gifted population and what it all means.
That book helped me advocate for my son because it is very specific.
I posted a couple weeks ago about my first grader's NNAT scores. Just a number came home from the school with no other info. I did research on the web and found it was 99th%. I called the teacher and got (surprise) a whole bunch of non-answers to my questions. The head "gifted" teacher was supposed to call me or provide me with info. I got no info. It was a bunch of beating around the bush-no one would ever admit these scores were good or tell me anything. Of course, the district offers enrichment only and I really don't see sewing stolas or building models in my future.
Oh you have to find out, Kathy. Especially since your child is only a first grader. And because we're curious.:)
When I was asking about my special ed son's scores the one explanation I got from the principal was that the test was all about judging the school, not the student.
However, when they make decisions regarding whether to pull out a kid for gifted services or not they use those test scores.
I was just doing some research for a project and came across this post. I actually work on the CogAT, and I can assure you it is probably the best group intelligence test available. It was originally designed by E.L. Thorndike himself. One problem with it however is that the scale changes a bit from grades K-2 and grades 3-12. That can cause score changes. The 3-12 section is more reliable.
Also understand that the CogAT is a pure academic reasoning test. It presents highly g-loaded tasks in the verbal, quantitative, and figural modes. It does not measure memory, perceptual speed, or spatial abilities like many individually administered IQ tests. It is not really a comphensive test of cognitive abilities at all. "Cognitive abilities" has really just become a euphamism for intelligence.
The CogAT does not show the flynn effect nearly as much as many other tests, and it has a top-quality year 2000 norming sample. Thus it is likely to yeild lower (and more accurate) scores than other tests.
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