Schools Segregated by Test Scoring Ability

By Stewart BrekkecloseAuthor: Stewart Brekke Name: Stewart Brekke
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About: Stewart E Brekke, MS in Ed, MA retired from Chicago Public Schools where he taught high school physics and chemistry.See Authors Posts (3)
 

We still have segregated schools, but now they are based on test scoring ability
by Stewart E Brekke

Unknown to the general public, many educators and news commentators, many school systems in America – especially in large urban cities – are segregated according to the test taking ability of the students. In Chicago and New York, for instance, the specialty schools such as so called magnet schools, take only above average and high scoring students while the so called “neighborhood schools” take what students are left over or systematically rejected by the magnet schools, the average and low scoring students. This segregation by the public schools especially in large American cities of the student population according to test taking ability has unfairly given the school administration and media leverage to fire teachers because they have not produced good test scores in their classes or schools. Very little can be done to change those test scores since those low scoring schools have only naturally low scoring students or average students’ scores in the school population.

The true story behind those below average and low test scores is that the testing populations of those neighborhood schools is not normal. In these so called neighborhood schools there only naturally average scoring student scores being pulled down by only naturally low student scores with no above average or high scores to bring them to about average resulting in continually below average scores for the neighborhood schools as a whole. Since test taking ability is related to IQ, there is very little anyone can do, from the best teachers to the best administrators, to change those student scores in the neighborhood schools besides changing the population of the school to include many naturally high scoring students. In other words include many more higher IQ students in the low scoring school population. and/or change the tests to easier.

The so called magnet or specialty schools in the big cities only have naturally above average and high scoring students in their populations. Therefore, the scores for those schools is always above average and the teaching positions are safe because the schools look good to the world. The worst teachers will look good to all the world because their students will always score well on standardized tests no matter how they teach because the students are naturally high and above average scorers. Because of their naturally high and above average scoring populations there are only high scores pulled down by above average scores with no low or average scorers to make the scores for the magnet schools average or below average.

I was in a neighborhood school for many years. Many of the teachers tried all kinds of techniques for improving test scores, but the test scores did not go up because population of the school was naturally average and below average test scorers. We found out that these scores on standardized tests have very little to do with staff and curriculum changes and have a lot to do with the specifics of the test itself. The test we in Chicago had used for many years was very difficult for the students and often the students would just give up rather than continue to try to answer the questions on the test. When a new administration came to run the schools, the system wide test was changed and the overall test scores improved–no staff or curriculum changes, just changing the citywide tests improved the sores of the students.

Also, I went to another high school and met an administrator from the main office of our school system. He told me that the way in which some high schools had improved school test scores was by changing the test-taking populations. The new principals admitted only naturally high and average test scoring students to their traditionally average and low scoring student populations and behold the scores improved. The principals were lauded in the press as miracle workers when they simply changed the population of the school to naturally higher scoring test takers.

The test scores are based substantially on the natural test taking ability of the students and the nature of the tests taken. Teacher, administrator and curriculum changes will not substantially improve standardized test scores very much. A teacher can go from a naturally low scoring school where he/she was considered a poor teacher to a naturally high scoring school and then be considered a good teacher only because he/she has taught a naturally higher scoring test population of students.

By populating schools on test scoring ability a new form of segregation is being practiced. Slower students are being deprived of an enriched environment in which exposure to higher levels of ideas and performance is missing. Also erroneous blame based on virtually unchangeable test scores is being attributed to probably better teaching since better teaching is need to reach average and below average students.

Stewart Brekke