Table Of ContentCase Study: The New York Performance
Standards Consortium
Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook
The story of the Institute for Health Professions at Cambria Heights illustrates the positive impact
of using performance assessments rather than relying on the state Regents exams.
MY PATH AWAY FROM THE entered fifth grade. Before that, I had
TEST (GARETH ROBINSON) attended a parochial school and then
Adelphi Elementary, a public school
Iw as born in Port of Spain,
in Prince George’s County where my
Trinidad and Tobago, West
mom moved us to pursue a better life.
Indies. When I was three, my
Although I had been accepted to the
mother, brother, and I immigrated to
gifted and talented program at
the United States, joining my grand-
Adelphi, my mother had not given up
mother and two uncles in a
on her dream of an independent
one-bedroom apartment in Martin
school for me. I remember missing
Luther King Towers, a public housing
school so I could be tested and visit
development in northwest Washing-
different independent schools.
ton, D.C. My grandmother and
mother worked for a wealthy family I was excited to start Sidwell, because
whose children attended an indepen- I had seen during my visit that the
dent school, and soon my mother school had so many things that
became determined that her sons, Adelphi did not. Beyond the physical
too, should attend an independent plant, everyone seemed to know
school. everyone, and everyone I met seemed
very interested in me as a person.
Ultimately, my older brother was
Reflecting back on it, I believe that
accepted at Sidwell Friends, a Quaker
this was because the school’s commu-
school now known as the school
nity was built on the Quaker core
favored by the children of the
value that an “inner light” exists in
Washington elite; I joined him when I
all people.
Gareth Robinson is the founding principal of the Institute for Health Professions at Cambria Heights.
Ann Cook is the executive director of the New York Performance Standards Consortium.
14 Annenberg Institute for School Reform
Two things stand out from my time at where my students would engage in
Sidwell: first, many of my teachers did large-group conversation. During an
not follow the textbooks, and second, eleventh-grade unit on The Adventures
we spent a substantial amount of time of Huckleberry Finn, I would ask my
discussing material. Ms. Reinthaler, to students to categorize and compare
this day my favorite teacher, jumped what happened to Huck when he was
around the math book in unpredictable on the shore versus when he was on
ways and was obsessed more with the river. I was often met with silence,
what we were thinking than with the or “Mister, why don’t you just tell us
answer we wrote down. We were more the answer so we can go on?” I was
likely to go outside and use a cigarette also astonished that my kids lacked
lighter shaped like a parabola or use a literacy and writing skills.
ruler sticking out of the board to
Despite my belief in the importance of
demonstrate the z-axis than we were to
discussion, feedback from my assistant
do every problem in the textbook. Ms.
principal and colleagues required that I
Reinthaler’s class created a long-lasting
change my practice. I was told that
impression on me.
“for the sake of the kids,” my lessons
Sidwell’s classes were interdisciplinary. needed to be connected to the New
In English, for example, we spent York Regents exams, statewide
classes analyzing literature and looking standardized tests required for high
for connections between a particular school graduation. The teacher
literary work and related social topics. regarded by my assistant principal as
We looked at what The Canterbury the best English teacher at the school
Tales had to say about the role of started every class with an exercise
women during Chaucer’s time; reading taken directly from the exam: provid-
Native Son led to a tearful discussion ing a “critical lens” quote for students
on race relations at the school. Science to interpret, agree with or not, and
classes, beginning with biology, provide two pieces of literature that
included labs and the use of Excel and supported the interpretation. I faced a
Word to write lab reports because dilemma: I believed that I needed to
“that is what scientists did.” teach my students the way I was
taught, but I understood that failing to
prepare my students for the Regents
Teaching to the tests
exams would amount to professional
When I first entered the classroom as a malpractice and prevent kids from
teacher in the New York City (NYC) graduating.
public schools, I expected to teach my
During the next stops of my NYC
students the same way I had been
teaching career – which included a
taught at Sidwell. That approach didn’t
large comprehensive high school with a
work. The world of teaching and learn-
low graduation rate and a history of
ing in the schools where I was assigned
violence, a struggling middle school in
was drastically different from the elite
one of Brooklyn’s poorest neighbor-
world of Sidwell Friends. Not apples
hoods, and a small high school that
and oranges different. Apples and
selected its students in part based on
rhubarb different.
standardized test scores – my teaching
During my first two years, I taught at a centered around the role of standard-
School Under Registration Review – ized tests. While teaching at the
identified by the New York State struggling large comprehensive high
Education Department (NYSED) as a school, which would eventually be
school most in need of improvement – closed after being named one of the
where I struggled to create a classroom most persistently violent in the state, I
Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook VUE 2017, no. 46 15
was told by colleagues to make sure mindset of test preparation among
that I mentioned the Regent’s exam New York teachers. I showed a video
during an observation or the principal of a Living Environment class (the
might rate the lesson unsatisfactorily. state-required biology course), where a
When presenting students with context teacher used an excerpt from a science
for a literary text, I created read-aloud fiction novel to facilitate a discussion.
passages on which my students were to When I asked my teachers how this
take notes and answer questions. All video could serve as a model for the
my tests and exams were mini versions work that we would do with our
of the Regents exams and featured the students, the Living Environment
critical lens essay. teacher asked, “How am I supposed to
spend several days discussing this book
While I did my best to avoid teaching
when I have to cover the Living
to the test, the reality was that I
Environment curriculum so the kids
became focused on making sure that
have a chance on the Regents exam?”
the exam would not prevent my
students from attending college. When Similar complaints came from teachers
my students graduated, I always in other departments. “It would be
counseled them to make sure they great,” they argued, “to focus on
visited their new college’s writing specific historical time periods or core
center, since I knew that many of them mathematical concepts,” but the need
graduated from high school only able to ensure that our kids passed the
to write a critical lens essay. exams was the proverbial elephant in
the room. The very same dilemma I
experienced as a teacher would become
Creating a school where we would not
the defining challenge in my new role
teach to the test
as a school leader.
After spending twelve years teaching
This situation would change when one
English, I seized an opportunity to
of our school’s coaches connected us
create and serve as principal of a new
with the New York Performance
high school that would connect
Standards Consortium (see sidebar).
students to a possible career, but also
This introduction led my school’s
focused on classroom discussion. I
founding staff to make a decision that
partnered with the Institute for Student
would fundamentally change the
Achievement (ISA) because there was a
trajectory of our school’s development.
philosophical connection between my
vision for my proposed school and
ISA’s emphasis on career and technical IMPACT OF IHPCH’S
education. The collaboration resulted
TRANSITION TO THE
in the Institute for Health Professions
CONSORTIUM (ANN COOK
at Cambria Heights (IHPCH), a high
& GARETH ROBINSON)
school that opened in 2013 with 56
ninth-grade students and has grown to Becoming a Consortium school has
420 students in four grades. had a particularly powerful impact on
the role teachers play at IHPCH, and
During summer professional develop-
faculty ownership of the process is
ment with the founding teachers, I
regarded as critically important. To
stressed that student inquiry, interdisci-
support teachers in the transition, we
plinary connections, and discussion
attended summer workshops held by
were essential to developing the school
the Consortium, visited and observed
I envisioned. Although I had hired
Consortium teacher practice, and
teachers with this vision in mind, it
participated in the Consortium’s
proved very difficult to change the
16 Annenberg Institute for School Reform
HISTORY OF THE NEW YORK PERFORMANCE STANDARDS
CONSORTIUM (ANN COOK)
The Consortium was created by a waiver Overall, the Consortium schools have a
in 1995 by the New York State Educa- lower dropout rate than the city schools.
tion Commissioner. The waiver allowed Statistics from the New York City
Consortium schools to graduate their Department of Education (NYC DOE)
students using a system of performance- show that 83 percent of Consortium
based assessments (called PBATs or students met or exceeded NYC DOE
portfolio assessments) in lieu of four of targets for enrollment in college a full
the five Regents exams. eighteen months after graduation,
compared with 59 percent of students in
Today, nearly 30,000 students attend the rest of the city.2
the Consortium’s thirty-nine public high
schools in New York City, Rochester, and A Spencer Foundation–funded study of
Ithaca. Comparative data have demon- teachers who moved from test-based
strated these students’ success, with schools to Consortium schools found
particularly significant results for that teachers in the performance-based
four- and six-year high school gradua- assessment environment strongly believe
tion rates for students of color.1 NYC they “learn more about their student’s
Consortium schools serve a higher academic needs” and are able to “teach
percentage of African American, Latino, more creatively” and teach “more
English language learner (ELL), special socially just” and “culturally relevant”
needs, and low-income students than curriculum. Researchers also reported
the city’s public schools as a whole, and that teachers in their second year of
Consortium students enter high school teaching in performance-based assess-
with lower math and English test results ment schools felt their students were
than city-wide averages. Yet these same “more engaged in school” and that
students graduate at higher rates than using PBATs made “their students more
the city average, with a four-year interested in learning” (Hantzopoulos,
graduation rate for ELL students that is Rivera-McCucthen & Tyner-Mullings
31 percentage points higher than the 2016).
city average.
For more information on the Consortium, see
http://performanceassessment.org.
annual conference. The main form of challenges. For example, one of
support I gave my teachers was IHPCH’s graduation-level science
freedom to experiment with both the PBATs is a project where students
“what” and the “how” in their engineer a catapult using their knowl-
teaching. Our emphasis on inquiry- edge of projectile motion and mass.
based teaching and learning and Science teachers collaborated to ensure
discussion-based classrooms resulted in that in physics classes, students would
a strong focus on pedagogy and gain experience contextualizing a
positive rates of teacher retention. design problem, critiquing the process,
Instead of narrowly focusing on testing a design prototype, evaluating
anticipated questions on a standardized
test, IHPCH teachers plan curricula for
1 See the online version of this article at
students that ensure that interim assess-
http://vue.annenberginstitute.org/issues/46
ments (pre-PBATs) are aligned to the for a table with these data.
same skills students will need to 2 See individual school data at http://schools.
complete the more complex PBAT nyc.gov/Accountability/tools/review/
default.htm.
Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook VUE 2017, no. 46 17
the design, and finally, defending their for the Regents exam; empowering
work in an oral presentation. because teachers have created classes
that engage students in ways that are
The transition toward performance-
not possible when the Regents exam is
based assessment and away from
the summative assessment. Compare,
Regents exams has been both humbling
for example, a global history course
and empowering for IHPCH teachers:
description offered at a nearby high
humbling because any instructional or
school with one offered at IHPCH.
curricular problems could not be
blamed on the need to prepare students
NEW YORK STATE IHPCH COURSE
REGENTS COURSE
Global History Get Up Stand Up, Global Humanities
Semester 3: A survey course roughly Semesters 3 & 4: Get Up Stand Up is a
covering the years 1500–1920, focusing performance-based assessment class that
on the nineteenth century. Topics include focuses on revolutions and human rights
the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, through a study of the impact of the
World War I, and the rise of totalitarian- Enlightenment on the concept of freedom.
ism. Students will use a combination of The course explores how these ideas
cooperative learning, discussions, and influenced the political revolutions of the
critical thinking to better understand how eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
the forces of industrialization, nationalism, Students complete a case study of the
and imperialism combined to create the Holocaust as an example of governmental
modern world. abuse of power and subsequently focus on
human rights violations that have occurred
Semester 4: This course focuses on the
since 1945.
twentieth century from World War II to
the present. Topics include the Cold War, The course requires that students complete
post-colonial independence movements a research paper and make a presentation.
and contemporary global issues.
Impact on students and parents building evidence-based arguments,
oral and written communication,
After the school’s first year, which had
subject-area competence in health care,
included students taking Regents
innovation, creativity, collaboration,
exams, the staff announced that the
revision, and goal setting. Unlike
school would be joining the Consor-
standardized tests, PBATs also allow
tium and making a transition away
for instructional coherence and
from the Regents exams. In presenting
differentiation in the classroom.
this decision to parents and students,
the staff emphasized that many of the The initial reaction of the students to
skills staff wished students to develop, the transition was a mini celebration.
practice, and strengthen could be They were excited that we had chosen
realized through performance-based what they thought was an “easier”
assessment, including analysis, model- path to graduation that did not involve
ing possible solutions, strategizing, the Regents exams. We cautioned
18 Annenberg Institute for School Reform
students that this work would be Utilizing the Consortium’s student
difficult and even included the chal- focused, practitioner-directed system
lenging nature of PBATs in our of assessment doesn’t immediately
recruiting talks to parents. Although transform classrooms into dynamic
prospective parents said they recog- centers of learning, but, crucially, it
nized similarities between the PBATs allows us to shift our expectations of
and undergraduate or graduate work, children from test-takers to active
they were concerned. They simply learners, showing that when given the
could not believe that colleges would tools and the opportunity, all students
accept their children without Regents can have the opportunity to engage in
exam scores. After all, as graduates of the level of discourse that I first
New York State high schools, most of experienced at Sidwell Friends.
our parents had themselves taken
Regents exams. In order to better
understand the impact of our assess-
REFERENCE
ment system on our graduates, we
intend to create an email alumni group
Hantzopoulos, M., R. Rivera-McCucthen,
so that we can track their successes and
and A. Tyner-Mullings. 2016. “In Transi-
struggles in college, which will provide
tion: How PBATs Shape Instruction and
us with more concrete evidence for
School Culture.” Unpublished draft of
future discussions with parents.
study in progress, funded by the Spencer
During our school’s second full year, Foundation and Vassar College.
we implemented the use of presenta-
tions of learning, which evolved into
pre-PBAT work. During these presenta-
tions, many students asked if we could
go back to being a Regents school “
because “the presentations of learning
were asking them to do too much
reading, writing, and discussion.” “
One student said that although our interim
There were tears in the hallway and
cries of “How can we get all of this
assessments (PBATs) were more work than
work done?” After our physics
graduation-level PBAT was given to Regents, they were more interesting and
our first graduating class in January
2016, one student who had failed both meaningful – more than simply answering
the Algebra I and Living Environment
Regents exams but passed the physics questions on paper.
PBAT said that although PBATs were
more work than Regents, they were
more interesting and meaningful
because the assessment, an engineering
project, was more than simply answer-
ing questions on paper.
The transformation from a Regents-
driven school to one focused on
inquiry-based teaching, discussion,
in-depth investigation, and oral
presentations is certainly a challenge
for both students and staff, but I
believe we are on the right track.
Gareth Robinson and Ann Cook VUE 2017, no. 46 19
