Education Week - August 5, 2015 - 8

N.Y.C. School Aims for 'Authentic,' Not Standardized, Tests
Projects determine
high school diploma
By Catherine Gewertz
Tiffany Mungin spent many nervous weeks researching and writing her paper about the Vietnam
War. Her high school graduation
was on the line.
Unlike most New York state seniors, who vied for their diplomas
by taking the state's standardized
tests, Ms. Mungin had to write a
history research paper and an analytic essay in English/language arts.
She also had to conduct an original
science experiment and undertake
an applied-mathematics project in
order to graduate. The 18-year-old's
work would have to be evaluated by
at least two teachers, and she would
have to defend it in formal presentations to panels of educators.
This is the way mastery is assessed
at Tiffany's school, East Side Community High School in Manhattan.
It's one of 48 schools in the New York
Performance Standards Consortium,
which have permission to use projects
for graduation instead of the statemandated standardized tests known
as the Regents. As national debate
intensifies about testing, East Side
High offers a glimpse into an alternative way of sizing up student learning.
There's reason to pay attention to
that alternative, too. Research on the
consortium schools shows that while
they serve larger proportions of lowachieving students than New York
City schools in general, they produce
higher graduation and college-enrollment rates. These students show
staying power in college, too: Tracking
data show that three-quarters enroll
for a second year, a little higher than
the national persistence rate.
At East Side, 82 percent of students
graduate high school within four
years, while citywide, that figure is 68
percent. An average of 69 percent of
East Side graduates enroll in postsecondary programs within six months of
graduating, compared with 51 percent
citywide. Of the East Side students
who go to college, three-quarters enroll in four-year institutions.
The consortium's approach to assessment dates to the mid-1990s,
when a group of schools won a waiver
from the state to use more "authentic"
ways of assessing student learning.
Part of the burgeoning small-schools
movement in New York City, those
schools sought a more personalized
way of teaching, emphasizing projectbased learning and application of
ideas to real-life things.

Facing the Evaluators
Ms. Mungin's 60-minute social
studies presentation reflected those
values. She had stepped outside the
main focus of her law and justice class
to research something that intrigued
her: why so many U.S. soldiers in
Vietnam turned against the war. On a
mid-June morning, she took her seat
to present and defend her work, sitting opposite her teacher, Ben Wides,

Mark Abramson for Education Week

New York

Tiffany Mungin, right, a student from East Side Community High School in New York City, presents her long-term
research project to David Vazquez, center, the principal of another city high school, and her teacher, Ben Wides.

and the principal of a Bronx high
school, David Vazquez. Both had already read her eight-page paper and
used the consortium's shared grading
rubrics to evaluate her analysis, her
viewpoint and use of evidence, her
sourcing, organization, and "voice."
Using the PowerPoint deck on her
laptop, Ms. Mungin presented the
highlights of her argument. She said
that soldiers turned against the war
because of the harsh conditions they
confronted in Vietnam, and because
they came to believe their own government was lying to them about the war.
Both men took notes as they listened.
Then the questions began: Can you
be more specific about what the soldiers felt the government was lying
about? Who was lying? You said that
Vietnam was under a dictatorship;
what do you mean by that? Your paper
says these soldiers experienced very
different conditions and support than
during World War II. Can you elaborate? Was it wrong for Americans who
protested the war to blame the soldiers who had gone to fight it?
The two educators took Ms. Mungin
outside the scope of her paper, too, asking her to make connections between
Vietnam and the Iraq War, and to expand on her thoughts about why governments lie, and whether they still do
so today.
They thanked her and asked her to
step into the hall. Mr. Wides and Mr.
Vazquez discussed her presentation,
judging her opening remarks and
her response to questions separately.
They evaluated them against multiple factors in the consortium's shared
rubrics, rating each one "outstanding," "good," "competent" or "needs
revision." They agreed that her thesis
should be clearer, and that she should
strengthen her evidence that soldiers
were actually being lied to, not just
feeling deceived.
Shifting from foot to foot in the
hallway, Ms. Mungin said it was
"nerve-racking" to wait for the teachers' findings.
But she worried needlessly. When
Mr. Wides and Mr. Vazquez invited

8 | EDUCATION WEEK | August 5, 2015 | www.edweek.org

her back into the classroom, they told
her that her project met the standard
for high school graduation. They detailed their feedback on each aspect
of the paper and presentation, and offered feedback for revisions. The paper
also counts for 30 percent of her social
studies grade.

Working Up to It
Students at East Side spend
months, even years, getting ready for
these presentations. The school enrolls 650 students in grades 6-12, and
all students do 30-minute "roundtable" presentations in their core subjects twice a year that are smaller
versions of the high-stakes projects
Ms. Mungin did. Students who spend
all seven years at East Side produce
about 50 such offerings by the time
they graduate.
In one classroom in mid-June, 9th
grade science students presented
roundtables to groups of teachers and
fellow students. One girl described a
home energy audit she conducted.
Around the corner, an 8th grade math
student stood in front of two teachers and a fellow student, using an
overhead video projector to show how
he did the calculations to expand an
image by 50 percent.
Staunch advocates of East Side's
way of learning, and testing, argue
that it builds not only content knowledge, but the skills to apply it to reallife situations, to make arguments and
interpretations with it, and to present
and defend it orally. Principal Mark
Federman said that those skills-even
more than the content-offer students
enduring strengths in college.
"Especially for kids who are used
to feeling marginalized, to be able
to walk into a college and speak up,
to tell an adult what you think and
why, creates a sense of entitlement,
an empowerment, they didn't have
before," he said. "And that carries
over to things like getting what you
need at the housing office. Getting
your work noticed. They can advocate for themselves."

Those strengths may be showcased in the performance assessment, but they're built through a different kind of teaching, consortium
advocates said.
"If you want kids to write well, to
handle multiple points of view, do science and not just read it, ... read books
and discuss various aspects of literature, then you have to teach them in
a way that helps kids get those kinds
of skills," said Ann Cook, who founded
one of New York's best-known small
schools, Urban Academy, and helps
lead the consortium.
"That means a different kind of
teaching. Inquiry-based, emphasizing
thinking in depth rather than coverage," Ms. Cook said.

'Ready to Excel' in College
That's the culture Javier Montero
came from as an East Side High
graduate. Now a rising junior at the
State University of New York at New
Paltz, Mr. Montero has a 3.0 grade
point average and plans a career in
mechanical engineering. He said that
while fellow students in his English
composition classes "freaked out"
about five-page writing assignments,
he was used to writing papers two or
three times that long.
"The way I study for my math and
science exams now is the way I prepared for my roundtables and [end-ofyear presentations] at East Side," he
said. "I would study everything from
the entire semester, not just stuff
for my project, because I knew there
would be a lot of questions and answers, and I had to know everything."
Darryl Jones is the senior associate
director of admissions at Gettysburg
College in Pennsylvania. He recruits
students from East Side High, and he
says their college preparation stands
out as solid.
"I have sat in on classes, and the
teachers teach the classes as if they
were teaching college," he said. "They
emphasize more thought, more reasoning, more critical analysis. There is
a lot of discussion, and less is done by

rote memory. They're learning to ask
the right questions. When you look at
highly selective colleges, that's what
it's all about."
Gettysburg makes admissions
tests like the ACT and the SAT optional, evaluating students instead
on their grades, essays, and other
things. But selective colleges that
require national admissions tests
can pose barriers to consortium
students, since many come from
low-income families with little
history of formal education, factors linked to lower scores on such
exams. Nearly 9 in 10 East Side
students take the SAT , but their
average score on the math and
reading portions totals 878 out of
1600. Their average score on New
York state's Regents exam-the
only one of five state-mandated
exams that consortium students
must take-is 73 out of 100. The
passing score is 65.
Consortium advocates argue that
such scores illustrate the mismatch
between the deep learning in the network's classrooms and the kinds of
knowledge that are tested on the SAT
and the Regents, which are dominated
by multiple-choice questions.

Measuring Mastery
Some question the schools' approach
to declaring graduation-level competency. One state department of education staff member who is familiar
with the consortium's work said that
in most cases, the assessments are
"quite rigorous," but in some, the interactions during testing have raised
doubts about the tests' validity.
"You see these cases where a
teacher, because she cares about
the student, is walking her through
her presentation, pushing the quality of what she knows she can deliver. It's not cheating, but it's a
confused interaction," said the
staffer, who asked not to be named.
"It's not totally about proficiency
and mastery. It's about what you
can produce with the right support.
Many of the kids who can do it are
ready for college. But many can't
do it without the support, and that
support won't be there when they
go to college."
Tom Mullen, an assistant principal at East Side High, conceded that
the distinction between assessment
and instruction can be "a touchy
point," largely because the consortium is grounded on the belief that
students' presentations are as much
a learning experience as classroom
instruction.
"It's tough: If we wade too much into
having [year-end presentations] be a
teachable moment, they won't be a
valid assessment," he said. "We have
to watch that line. But we do. We're
teaching, and assessing, what we
think really matters. And judging by
our students' experiences in college, I'd
say we're onto something."
Coverage of the implementation of
college- and career-ready standards
is supported in part by a grant from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Education Week retains sole editorial
control over the content of this coverage.

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Education Week - August 5, 2015

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