California moves closer to eliminating, replacing reading instruction test that has blocked thousands from teaching credential

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• el 3 years ago3 years ago

  As the person who posted a practice test item, I welcome the opportunity to learn more about the purpose and value of this test. While it was cherry-picked as an item that seemed problematic, it was cherry-picked from the first 5 test questions, and the style of it is not rare on the practice test. If the practice test is significantly different from the actual test, this could point to another reason that test-takers struggle … Read More

  As the person who posted a practice test item, I welcome the opportunity to learn more about the purpose and value of this test. While it was cherry-picked as an item that seemed problematic, it was cherry-picked from the first 5 test questions, and the style of it is not rare on the practice test. If the practice test is significantly different from the actual test, this could point to another reason that test-takers struggle with it.

  Seriously: if you’re saying this is just one bad question that isn’t at all like what is really asked, who the heck is doing quality control there? (FWIW from my layperson reading there are many more like it.)

  I am fine with the idea of a standardized test for reading theory … though I have to ask why we don’t think our required university coursework doesn’t ensure this knowledge is gained. But just because it’s a standardized test doesn’t mean it’s good at its intended purpose. Given that the exam is intended to be given to prepared, trained, individuals who are highly motivated to pass it, you should expect something like a 90% pass rate. That it is not suggests to me that the exam is either not aligned with the training or that the questions are designed to stack-rank and produce differentiation – ie that the designers of the test, when evaluating questions, are throwing out questions that too many students get right as not being valid or interesting, instead of judging that it is a good question and showing that indeed our candidates have mastery of the subject.

  You’re right: I don’t have access to the full live test. The people who pay for and regulate the test – we the customer – need our representatives to look at each question and ask, “Is this question, viewed in the entirety of the answer choices, important to me in deciding whether to allow the candidate to teach children?” We’re very strict about that in interview questions: We can’t ask things that are irrelevant like if the candidate has biological children at home. We need to be as strict about that in our standardized test questions. Every single question should be clear and relevant to the need.

  • Dr. Bill Conrad 3 years ago3 years ago

    The RICA should be organized around the fundamental scientifically validated reading elements of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. The test should interrogate prospective teacher understanding of these fundamental ideas at increasing levels of complexity. Candidates should be given multiple questions at increasing levels of complexity for each fundamental idea. Scale scores will be assigned for the level of complexity achieved and not the number of assessment items answered correctly. A cut scale … Read More

    The RICA should be organized around the fundamental scientifically validated reading elements of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. The test should interrogate prospective teacher understanding of these fundamental ideas at increasing levels of complexity. Candidates should be given multiple questions at increasing levels of complexity for each fundamental idea. Scale scores will be assigned for the level of complexity achieved and not the number of assessment items answered correctly. A cut scale score is established to determine whether the candidate passed.

    K-12 education is chaotic though. It tries to maintain a non-scientifically validated theory of how students learn to read and will include magical fundamental ideas around the notion of Balanced Reading. This theory of action posits that students learn to read by being exposed to ever increasing levels of reading complexity – similar to the way students learned to speak. Cognitive experts have debunked this theory but the alchemistic K-12 education system continues to hold on to this fallacious belief. This manufactured reading crisis clouds the teacher preparation assessments and also is reflected in the student outcomes with fewer than half of 3rd graders being able to read. The laughable colleges of education continue to teach students incorrect reading instruction to their students. This is a real problem and is reflected in teacher certification test results.

    An assessment is more than just a collection of discrete items. You need to consider the overall assessment theory of action, validity, and reliability. Validating and checking for test reliability are powerful tools and do work. It is not magic as is so prevalent in K-12 education.

    I addition to understanding the fundamental ideas of how kids learn to read, the assessment should also assess whether or not prospective teachers can effectively use key instructional practices like explicit instruction as well as formative and summative assessment techniques to gauge student reading understanding, diagnose student reading needs, design interventions, and then monitor for the success of those reading interventions. Certainly this could be addressed by a pencil and paper assessment as well as a performance assessments.

    The student data clearly demonstrates that teachers have problems teaching reading. It is not a student problem so we should not be blaming or labeling the students as we are fond of doing in K-12 education. It is time to recognize that the assessments are really doing their job and that it is time we looked in the mirror and fixed our knowledge of how children learn to read, how to teach it well, and how to assess it well. Our children deserve no less. Who is looking out for the children?

    • Chris Stampolis 3 years ago3 years ago

      Bill, for many years you have critiqued the preparation system for teachers and in this article's threads of comments, you refer to the "laughable schools of education." I am not criticizing you in my comment here. I intend no ad hominem in this post. Rather, I submit a serious question that builds on your posted question: "Who is looking out for the children?" You have a doctorate and for years you have shared … Read More

      Bill, for many years you have critiqued the preparation system for teachers and in this article’s threads of comments, you refer to the “laughable schools of education.” I am not criticizing you in my comment here. I intend no ad hominem in this post. Rather, I submit a serious question that builds on your posted question: “Who is looking out for the children?”

      You have a doctorate and for years you have shared well-detailed insights into the teacher preparation systems’ failings. You also have experienced that many public school administrators who have power to hire and to choose curricula have little skill, training or aptitude in the science of reading instruction.

      My question to you is “To which universities would you recommend that aspiring teachers enroll in 2020 to obtain proper – not ‘laughable’ – instruction about how to teach reading?”

      Additional question: What books and/or studies do you recommend about the proper science to teach reading?

      Members of the current generation of teens and 20s need to know where to start if they want to be competent teachers of reading. The high school class of 2035 already is pre-school aged. The people who will teach them need to know where to earn their academic credentials.

      • Dr. Bill Conrad 3 years ago3 years ago

        The National Council on Teacher Quality recently graded states on the quality of their teacher preparation programs as it relates to teaching their prospective teacher candidates scientifically-validated curriculum and teaching practices for reading. Amazingly, Mississippi has the most colleges of education who received B or A grades. Sadly California is not even listed. Overall only 51% of colleges of education teach scientifically-validated methods for teaching reading. This is an improvement from 35% in 2013. You can … Read More

        The National Council on Teacher Quality recently graded states on the quality of their teacher preparation programs as it relates to teaching their prospective teacher candidates scientifically-validated curriculum and teaching practices for reading. Amazingly, Mississippi has the most colleges of education who received B or A grades. Sadly California is not even listed.

        Overall only 51% of colleges of education teach scientifically-validated methods for teaching reading. This is an improvement from 35% in 2013.

        You can read the report at:
        https://www.nctq.org/dmsView/NCTQ_2020_Teacher_Prep_Review_Program_Performance_in_Early_Reading_Instruction

        I do have expertise in early reading especially within the context of assessments. As the assessment director for Santa Clara County, I helped install scientific-based screening and monitoring early reading assessments in many school districts including Redwood City. The main problem in K-12 education though is a dialectic that exists on the theory of action for teaching reading. Many school districts and colleges of education use a theory of action that reading can be learned similarly to the way that children learn oral language through listening, exposure, and imitation. Noam Chomsky, the famous linguist, demonstrated that the ability for young children to learn oral language is hard-wired in the brain. This is not true for learning reading, yet many in K-12 education pursue this failed theory of action.

        The National Reading Panel provided K-12 education with the correct research-based theory of action for how students learn to read and how to teach it. It is based on the five fundamental elements of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary. Students must be explicitly taught these five elements in order to learn how to read. K-12 education promotes a “Balanced” approach to teaching reading that puts most of its emphasis on the mimetic approach to teaching reading rather than the more scientific-based approach that emphasizes the 5 essential elements of reading. I would suggest that you make sure that you are well versed in the recommendations of the National Reading Panel.

        You might also have more success if you focus on how to screen and monitor for student acquisition of the 5 essential elements of reading through a study of the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills. or DIBELS. You can find many excellent resources at their website, the Center for Teaching and Learning or CTL. This site also promotes a variety of research-based interventions for improving student reading that may also help you with your case study work on the RICA.

        I also recommend that you review the awesome research by one of the eminent leaders on the National Reading Panel, Timothy Shanahan. You can learn a lot from his reading research, recommendations, and resources for teaching reading.

        When you were a board member for SCUSD, I worked valiantly to try and convince the leadership to advance a scientific approach to teaching reading within the district. I shared student reading data that demonstrated a real problem in teaching reading. This data did not convince the leadership as they were too willing to blame the victims and label them as slow readers.

        I even conducted focus group meetings with grade level teams at the schools. I remember one kindergarten team meetings where I asked the teachers and the reading coach if they knew the difference between phonemic awareness and phonics. No one could tell the difference. They asked for help in learning about the scientific approach to teaching reading. I reported my findings to the Associate Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction and the Elementary ELA director. They immediately moved to put me in my place by showing me a binder that had two pages defining phonemic awareness and phonics. They scoffed that of course the teachers know the difference between these terms as we gave them these binders two years ago. I was ordered to cease and desist in conducting any additional grade-level reading meetings with teachers.

        You and the rest of the school board were too engaged in petty in-fighting at that time to recognize the reading crisis in your midst.

        The fundamental issue that I raise in my response in the EdSource article was that until K-12 educators fully adopt the more scientific approach to teaching reading, tests like the RICA will contribute to a general confusion about how to teach reading. However, the RICA is more in alignment with the scientific-based approach to teaching reading so I recommend that you become well-versed in this approach as it is the correct one.

        The author of the article even agreed that there is a dearth of expertise in the ability to teach reading within the woeful colleges of education. There needs to be a transformation of the colleges of education and to some extent tests like the RICA so that it is fully in alignment with the scientific and research-based theory of action for teaching reading.