“Our Splendid Products”
Connections: Winter 2009 -- At the Hackley Parents’ Association meeting on December 3rd, Lower School Director Ron DelMoro shared with parents the impressive scores achieved by our 4th graders on the Educational Records Bureau tests this fall, which he discusses as well in this issue of Connections. Unlike public schools in New York, independent schools like Hackley need not require students to take what are called “high stakes” tests mandated by the New York State Department of Education.
In 2006 NYSED expanded their English Language Arts and Mathematics testing programs to Grades 3-8; before that, there were K-8 State tests only in Grades 4 and 8. Because the evaluation of public schools depends on those tests, they drive the curriculum, creating the phenomenon known as “teaching to the test.” When that happens, the validity of the test as a measure of transferable knowledge and skills diminishes, since what is being assessed is competence on the test itself. The administrators feel pressure to raise their school’s performance, they in turn pressure teachers to raise their class’s performance, and wittingly or not teachers pressure young children to raise their performance. The children are too young to understand this complex political dynamic, but not too young to feel the pervasive anxiety that seems focused on them – they are not too young to feel the emotional burden of a developmentally inappropriate responsibility.
At Hackley we use ERB tests to focus our collective curricular attention over time, choosing ourselves to administer them in Grades 4, 6, and 8. This gives us longitudinal data for individuals and classes, as well as data about particular knowledge and skills represented on these tests. Unlike NYSED-mandated tests, however, Hackley uses the tests, the tests don’t “use” Hackley! In other words, we can decide that some area of skill or knowledge represented on a test isn’t something we choose to pursue in our curriculum, and that therefore we won’t change our curriculum just because a collective score is relatively lower for that area. Ron discusses the example of auditory comprehension in his article – in all other areas tested by the ERB, Hackley students scored above the suburban school, independent school, and national means. We therefore aren’t unduly worried that our students perform slightly less well in recalling information given them orally one time only – a skill most useful in an environment where instruction is in lecture format. Hackley’s instruction is interactive – students learn through discussion, questions, and repetition. College students may need this skill, but our 4th graders need not focus on it. It’s a good discipline, however, to ask ourselves questions about areas where tests suggest our students are not as strong.
At the HPA meeting, parents were much impressed by the test achievement of our 4th graders and praised Hackley’s classroom instruction. Ron wisely pointed out, however, that the student achievement didn’t reflect just what happens in the classroom; he stressed how all the programs and activities at Hackley – from fieldtrips and after-school sports to arts and community service – combine to create a learning environment, a context that supports our students in all their endeavors.
While achievement on tests is higher in such an enriched educational environment, even achievement on tests is not for us the most important measure of educational progress, and that, too, is a difference we have with the NYSED focus. Their goal is school improvement, and testing is their means to attain that goal, but what if the achievement is not educational improvement but only test-taking improvement? (And of course, we’ve learned how such societal focus on tests may result
in “gaming” the test and reducing the challenge of the tests as a way of showing test improvements.)
At Hackley, we believe with Emerson that “Character is higher than intellect,” that “a great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.” We believe that individual achievement finds meaning through relationships with and responsibilities to others. This issue of Connections is itself a meaningful measure of such education at Hackley. As you read Bryan Hahm’s article about the Upper School garden club “Green Thumb” and their work with Lower School students, or Andy King’s article mentioning the participation of Beth Retzloff’s and Tia Donlevy’s Kindergarten class in an Upper School Community Service assembly, you will learn how Hackley’s context helps us learn from and help one another – Lower Schoolers learning from Upper Schoolers and vice versa! The pride and effectiveness of our students is so well represented in these many accounts of their community service activities, as is the vitality and leadership of our faculty. I was particularly impressed by Eddie Zhang’s speech at the Community Service assembly, also included in this issue. Eddie was a student in my class in Moral Philosophy, but he obviously learned more from his community service experience! Another authentic measure of education is the subsequent experience of graduates. I commend to you the article Rachel Gottesman published in The Dial for her peers, reprinted here. From international exchanges and travel to guest speakers to book fairs to arts and athletics, as this issue demonstrates, Hackley is fortunate to have engaged students, parents, and teachers all helping our students learn that knowledge and intellectual skills come to life and are mastered through action.
To quote Emerson, again from “The American Scholar”: “The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived.” Emerson understood that true scholarship cannot be isolated from life, any more than true educational achievement can be measured by tests alone. We best know the ideas and values that we use in our experience, and the very breadth of Hackley’s programs offers our students opportunities to connect their classroom knowledge with the world of relationships around them. “The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products.”
—Walter C. Johnson
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In 2006 NYSED expanded their English Language Arts and Mathematics testing programs to Grades 3-8; before that, there were K-8 State tests only in Grades 4 and 8. Because the evaluation of public schools depends on those tests, they drive the curriculum, creating the phenomenon known as “teaching to the test.” When that happens, the validity of the test as a measure of transferable knowledge and skills diminishes, since what is being assessed is competence on the test itself. The administrators feel pressure to raise their school’s performance, they in turn pressure teachers to raise their class’s performance, and wittingly or not teachers pressure young children to raise their performance. The children are too young to understand this complex political dynamic, but not too young to feel the pervasive anxiety that seems focused on them – they are not too young to feel the emotional burden of a developmentally inappropriate responsibility.
At Hackley we use ERB tests to focus our collective curricular attention over time, choosing ourselves to administer them in Grades 4, 6, and 8. This gives us longitudinal data for individuals and classes, as well as data about particular knowledge and skills represented on these tests. Unlike NYSED-mandated tests, however, Hackley uses the tests, the tests don’t “use” Hackley! In other words, we can decide that some area of skill or knowledge represented on a test isn’t something we choose to pursue in our curriculum, and that therefore we won’t change our curriculum just because a collective score is relatively lower for that area. Ron discusses the example of auditory comprehension in his article – in all other areas tested by the ERB, Hackley students scored above the suburban school, independent school, and national means. We therefore aren’t unduly worried that our students perform slightly less well in recalling information given them orally one time only – a skill most useful in an environment where instruction is in lecture format. Hackley’s instruction is interactive – students learn through discussion, questions, and repetition. College students may need this skill, but our 4th graders need not focus on it. It’s a good discipline, however, to ask ourselves questions about areas where tests suggest our students are not as strong.
At the HPA meeting, parents were much impressed by the test achievement of our 4th graders and praised Hackley’s classroom instruction. Ron wisely pointed out, however, that the student achievement didn’t reflect just what happens in the classroom; he stressed how all the programs and activities at Hackley – from fieldtrips and after-school sports to arts and community service – combine to create a learning environment, a context that supports our students in all their endeavors.
While achievement on tests is higher in such an enriched educational environment, even achievement on tests is not for us the most important measure of educational progress, and that, too, is a difference we have with the NYSED focus. Their goal is school improvement, and testing is their means to attain that goal, but what if the achievement is not educational improvement but only test-taking improvement? (And of course, we’ve learned how such societal focus on tests may result
in “gaming” the test and reducing the challenge of the tests as a way of showing test improvements.)
At Hackley, we believe with Emerson that “Character is higher than intellect,” that “a great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think.” We believe that individual achievement finds meaning through relationships with and responsibilities to others. This issue of Connections is itself a meaningful measure of such education at Hackley. As you read Bryan Hahm’s article about the Upper School garden club “Green Thumb” and their work with Lower School students, or Andy King’s article mentioning the participation of Beth Retzloff’s and Tia Donlevy’s Kindergarten class in an Upper School Community Service assembly, you will learn how Hackley’s context helps us learn from and help one another – Lower Schoolers learning from Upper Schoolers and vice versa! The pride and effectiveness of our students is so well represented in these many accounts of their community service activities, as is the vitality and leadership of our faculty. I was particularly impressed by Eddie Zhang’s speech at the Community Service assembly, also included in this issue. Eddie was a student in my class in Moral Philosophy, but he obviously learned more from his community service experience! Another authentic measure of education is the subsequent experience of graduates. I commend to you the article Rachel Gottesman published in The Dial for her peers, reprinted here. From international exchanges and travel to guest speakers to book fairs to arts and athletics, as this issue demonstrates, Hackley is fortunate to have engaged students, parents, and teachers all helping our students learn that knowledge and intellectual skills come to life and are mastered through action.
To quote Emerson, again from “The American Scholar”: “The preamble of thought, the transition through which it passes from the unconscious to the conscious, is action. Only so much do I know, as I have lived.” Emerson understood that true scholarship cannot be isolated from life, any more than true educational achievement can be measured by tests alone. We best know the ideas and values that we use in our experience, and the very breadth of Hackley’s programs offers our students opportunities to connect their classroom knowledge with the world of relationships around them. “The true scholar grudges every opportunity of action past by, as a loss of power. It is the raw material out of which the intellect moulds her splendid products.”
—Walter C. Johnson
Hackley School
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