From Bakersfield Californian...

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Students Get Wristbands for Test Scores, Stirring Debate

By Jorge Barrientos
The Bakersfield Californian

When Charlie Pike's daughters came home from Thorner Elementary School last week with a wristband on, he asked them what they were for.

They told him they received the bracelets for scoring "proficient" or "advanced" on state standardized tests, and were therefore invited to a school barbecue.

What about those who scored below? They didn't get bracelets, and weren't included. Pike was not happy about that.

"It's good to recognize kids, but they're humiliating the kids who didn't do well," Pike said.

This, he said, was unfair to students who traditionally score lower on standardized tests and might not reach proficiency no matter how hard they try—mainstreamed special education students, for example. Pike called the school and district, threatening to go to the media if they continued the exclusion.

Pike did, and Thorner ultimately included all students in the barbecue. The Bakersfield City School District did not say Pike's complaint led to the change of heart, and administrators could not be reached for details.

A district spokesman did say every school site tries to recognize student and staff accomplishments. It's up to each campus and its principal to determine how to do that.

But parents, teachers, administrators and testing experts say schools must be careful when rewarding students on how they do on state tests. It's more important to reward student gains, or the student body as a whole, than subgroups, they say.

Morgan Polikoff, a University of Southern California professor and expert in standards and assessments, said the Thorner incident seems to be analogous to No Child Left Behind, federal legislation aimed at improving K-12 schools' performance using standardized tests, among other things.

The program rewards schools that do well and sanctions those that perform poorly, or are not proficient.

"The problem is being proficient can be an unfair target for some schools," Polikoff said.

Similarly, he said, it can be an unfair target for certain students, and unfair to not reward those who have made tremendous gains in their test scores, but still have fallen short of the proficient mark.

Luke Hogue, a principal at Kendrick Elementary in the Greenfield Union School District, has dressed up as a hamster and woman and let students throw pies in his face to reward student bodies that met testing benchmarks. His school is one of the highest achieving in the county.

Schools should look at improvement overall, Hogue said. The state rewards schools anyway for students who make large jumps in test performance, not just proficiency.

"We try to look at the overall performance," Hogue said. "That's where you get your bang for your buck. The better thing would be to look at kids that have made growth."

On the other end, Polikoff said, students who scored proficient or better could have dropped in performance but still made the mark.

According to state data, about 60 percent of students at Thorner Elementary scored proficient or better in English last school year, 67 percent in math, and 40 percent in science. In the county, roughly 43 percent scored proficient or advanced in English, 41 percent in math, and 45 percent in science.

Pike's wife, Tina, said she understands it can be a fine line for schools: you want to reward student accomplishments.

"I applaud the school for wanting to do something," she said. "But they could have gone about it a different way."

Phillip Brown of the California Teachers Association, representing the Bakersfield Elementary Teachers Association, said he's concerned with labeling students and teachers on standardized test scores.

That leads to segregation and comparisons, he said. He called Thorner's early attempt at rewarding students "a mistake."

"It's a very positive thing to recognize kids for their achievements," Brown said. "But you recognize them as a group for working together and working hard. Recognition needs to be where it enhances and brings everybody in at the same time."