The great thing about many baseball statistics is that the numbers mean something. They are comparable from year to year and generation to generation. Passed down as sacred texts from which we can ask, "Who was the greatest?" or "How would this guy have played on that team?" Unfortunately, this doesn't always hold true. Pitching for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1968, Bob Gibson had an ERA of 1.12, perhaps the single greatest season by a pitcher in the Modern Era. The trick is we will never know. After years of descending Pitcher ERA's, beginning in 1969, Major League Baseball lowered the pitchers mound from 15 inches to 10 inches. Unlike changing the number of games in a season, through which the numbers could be pro-rated, the impact of this was not quantifiable in a linear manner. The next season Gibson had a ERA of 2.18. No one knew if this was better or worse. In 1981 Nolan Ryan had an ERA of 1.69, 1985 Dwight Gooden pitched to a 1.53, and Greg Maddux had a 1.56 in 1994. The numbers were no longer comparable. Bob Gibson remains the best pitcher of his ERA and Dwight Gooden in the 45 years since, but we will never know who was the best.
In education we also are always looking for accurate comparable information. How is my child doing? Do they know enough? How do they rank in the world? As concerns were raised in the 80's and 90's, States began to administer their own assessments to ensure academic achievement and communicate an accurate picture to parents about their child's performance. Regardless one's belief of the validity and value of these measures, in 1988 Illinois parents received the Illinois Goal Assessment Program (IGAP) results for their child. For eleven years, parents received a consistent report about their child's achievement. In 1999, Illinois parents began receiving results from the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) based on the Illinois Learning Standards. Like the lowering of the mound in baseball, the content and standards had changed, leaving the IGAP comparable to IGAP and ISAT comparable to ISAT.
In 2002 President Bush signed the "No Child Left Behind Act" as he reauthorized funds for the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. This law dynamically changed the purpose and framework of accountability and assessment, requiring accountability, achievement levels, and measurements of schools and districts through Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) and Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAO). Under this law, schools needed to eventually have 97 percent of their students and student subgroups attain certain state designated levels of achievement as approved by the Department of Education. A law intended to create an America similar that mythical land described by Garrison Keillor, "Welcome to Lake Wobegon where all the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average."
In 2008, Illinois eliminated the Illinois Measure of Annual Growth in English (IMAGE) assessment as required by the Department of Education with state officials telling educational leaders that we know the ISAT isn't an appropriate assessment for Second Language Learners, but the Feds are telling us we have to so we are. This created the asterisk in school achievement. The populations changed from the 1999-2007 to the 2008 and beyond assessment. Each school and district could look at their pre-2008 and post-2008 and make independent decisions regarding their rate of improvement. Parents of non-ELL students were not impacted. Their child's reports remained the same. Schools still had a familiar and consistent standard of content to compare their data. While the records weren't the same, like the race between "Babe" Ruth & Roger Maris they were comparable.
Unfortunately, we no longer live in that world. The last consistent data set for the ISAT was the 2012 administration. Like many states throughout the land, Illinois has crafted a plan to earn a waiver from the Department of Education. Essentially saying as they did in 2007 and 2008 that the Feds are making us do this, Illinois has created 4 years of non-comparable assessments:
- 2012 - Last Traditional ISAT
- 2013 - ISAT with New Cut Scores & 20% Common Core Content
- 2014 - ISAT with 100% Common Core Content
- 2015 - PARCC
In doing this, for nearly half of an elementary student's learning career parents will be unable to accurately compare one year to the next. Schools and Districts are being given talking points to explain why these changes are accurate and appropriate but are not given the tools to accurately convert the data because the State simply can't. It's too many variable changes. Neither state nor school officials can't truly say how much children's learning has grown using these State provided measures.
Unfortunately, the "Steroid Era" has hit education and government. In 1998 Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa "broke" the home run record with 70 and 66 respectively. In 2001 Barry Bonds hit 73. Numbers I used to know. Tainted numbers as we look back recognizing we don't know how many of these individuals cheated to break the record. In fact, as Major League Baseball players and owners turned a blind eye the conditions changed and all of the hitting and pitching performances are so suspect because of the variables of steroids that no one trusts any of them. In education, we are changing too many variables for parents. New content, new standards, annually changing tests are creating a lack of trust by both educators and parents in the data. Like the "Steroid Era" performances, the results at some point become unbelievable.
Principals and teachers are explaining to parents that their 8 year old exceeded standards in Reading in 2012 but only meets standards as a 9 year old in 2013. These same parents look at the (950 to 1100) Lexile information of what their child could read to improve and discover that appropriate books to push their child to that next achievement level include and find that Harry Potter , the Lord of the Rings, and the Lightening Thief series don't fit, why don't you have your child read 1984, the Hobbit, or the Hitchhiker's Guide. All great books but all too complex for the 9 year old mind.
Parents and educators want meaningful information about our children. We want to trust our Federal, State, District, and School leaders to provide an accurate and consistent picture about our children's learning. Just as we can compare the swimming records and performances of Mark Spitz, Matt Biondi, and Michael Phelps, we want to know that the pool, the water, and the race are essentially the same. That way we can marvel at the performance regardless of how much the training and technology has impacted it. For us, the race is essentially the same.
This is a dangerous time for us as educational leaders. We risk changing so much that we make the race moot. Go down the street and ask someone how many home runs Barry Bonds hit. Then ask them how many Roger Maris did. I bet you know your answer already.
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