SEHD Community Forums on High-Stakes Testing

New York now tests at Grades 4 and 8 and requires students to pass several Regents examinations for high school graduation. In May, in response to the deep concern the new mandates were creating, School of Education and Human Development (SEHD) professors Linda Irwin-DeVitis,Judy Kugelmass and Barbara Regenspan held community forums on high-stakes testing. The forums offered parents, teachers, students and other community members an opportunity to discuss what is happening in homes, classrooms and schools as a result of the state's assessments.

"We have own concerns [regarding testing], but we wanted to hear what the public was thinking, open up a discussion and help them to become more aware of the issues," said Irwin-DeVitis. "We wanted more dialogue among the constituents," she said.

Although the first forum was not well publicized or attended, two of the 10 parents who came took ownership in getting the word out to other parents. One took charge of four information kits prepared by SEHD faculty that contain a video and several articles. These kits are on loan to parents throughout the community, who invite other parents to their homes to view and share the information. SEHD's second community forum attracted 50 to 60 parents.

Parents were very eloquent at both meetings, said Irwin-DeVitis, who also noted that SEHD faculty who attended spoke very little, since the purpose was to hear the community's concerns. "The forum lasted one hour and 45 minutes, and one hour, 15 minutes, was devoted to group discussion," she said.

Parents express concerns

The discussions clearly revealed kids' stress levels as parents' primary concern. "Parents reported their kids are under a great deal of stress -- even parents of first-graders talked about the fact that first-grade teachers were telling them, 'You have to do this, because we have to get ready for the tests,'" said Irwin-DeVitis.

"The fact that curriculum was being narrowed to reflect the test was the other major concern parents expressed," Irwin-DeVitis said.

Regenspan, who was at both forums, reported that parents who attended were appalled at the renewed and increased emphasis on testing. "Parents have the compassion and the intelligence to be upset not only for their children, but for others parents' children, too," she said. "Parents talked about kids' and kids' teachers' plight in the same breath." In addition, parents understand that the pressure teachers feel to teach to the tests results in making their jobs less meaningful, she said.

"Most parents were worried about the pressure it was putting on their children, who were stressed and scared, as well as the amount of time it took away from teaching, because of the huge amount of time spent on test preparation," Kugelmass said. "They understood that schools are evaluated on how well kids do, and that teachers want to look good."

Although the majority of the parents at these forums were opposed to testing, one parent did speak in favor of testing, Kugelmass reported. "He said he wanted his children to take the tests, because he believed they were a way to show what children were learning,"

In general, people are divided on the testing issue, Irwin-DeVitis claimed. "There is no uniform opposition or support," she said.

Teachers speak out

Merri Earl, a retired teacher and member of the Writing Team for the Mathematics Framework/Standard for New York state, was eloquent in her defense of both standards and assessment at one of the forums, reported Irwin-DeVitis. An advocate of more hands-on activities, teaching for understanding and less emphasis on skills and drills in the teaching of math, Earl was involved not only in creating the New York state standards for math, but in approving questions for New York's standardized math tests.

Earl, who is now a consultant for the New York State Academy for Teaching and Learning (an organization that facilitates teachers in sharing their most creative and effective lesson plans) makes the point that publisher McGraw-Hill and New York state contracted with New York classroom math teachers to write some of the test questions. These were not the multiple-choice questions, but "open-ended questions, where students are required to explain answers and show their work, said Earl. Although she's not enamored of multiple choice, which she acknowledges is a large component of the test, Earl does say she believes the tests are useful in providing teachers and schools with information about what students know and how they learn.

"If you want to make improvements, somehow you must assess," Earl said. "It's developmentally appropriate to test a child's knowledge at fourth grade, but not before."

Earl also said she believes tests help identify students who are falling behind, making it possible to provide them with extra help.

A strong believer in providing children with a rich, integrated curriculum, Earl contends that New York state is also an advocate of integrated curriculum, and that this is obvious in its math, science and technology standards. Moreover, she doesn't see the tests as barriers to this kind of curriculum.

But many teachers do.

"Teachers have worked for a long time to encourage kids to be creative," said Kugelmass. But the pressures testing creates "pulls away from what we've learned for the past 25 years about how kids learn," she said. "A whole new generation of teachers has been learning more innovative methods, has been developing integrated curriculum -- and they can't do this anymore, because they have to prepare these kids for the test. The state says if teachers teach well, the kids will do well on the tests. I don't think that's true."

In fact, students learn more deeply when they're not just preparing for the test, and teachers teach better when they don't have a test overshadowing them, according to research done by Alfie Kohn, author of The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards", noted Irwin-DeVitis.

"We are seeing teachers in a panic," said Regenspan. "Suddenly, teachers feel they have to drop the intelligent planning of their integrated curriculum to bombard children with test preparation. In fact, teachers told us that districts were telling them to develop curriculum to the tests."

Teacher educators' views

"We want teachers to develop rich curriculum that shows children the connections between everything in the world, the connectedness of all intellectual knowledge," said Regenspan. "And then we take it apart to prepare them for tests? And we deny this marvelous connectedness, which is the key to developing their brains and their intellect, and their capacity to feel for other people? It's just nonsense. It's backwards. It's absolutely everything we don't want to be doing.

"Some really amazing teachers say they can do it all -- prepare for tests and maintain a rich, vibrant curriculum for their classrooms. But we can't expect that of all teachers: It takes such unusual capacity, and there are [only] a few artists in life who can juggle like that."

One of the ways in which teachers in the Binghamton area are responding to the testing mandates is by opting out of fourth grade. "These are teachers in fabulous schools that are noted for their rich integrated curriculum," said Regenspan. "Those with enough seniority are switching to other grades. In some places, all fourth-grade teachers are new."

People on both sides of the testing issue do agree on the importance and value of standards. Kugelmass thinks New York's standards for elementary school students are good, partly because they are broad.

Both sides also agree on the importance and value of accountability. But, as Kugelmass put it, "This way of doing it doesn't really get at making sure schools are doing a good job."

"The big danger," as Irwin-DeVitis put it, "is in reducing standards to test scores."

How do Binghamton alumni stand on the issue of high-stakes testing? We'd like to hear from you, and hope you'll write in with your views on the subject.

Winged warriors: Researchers track West Nile virus via predator and prey

photo left: Anne Clark's long-time interest in the social behavior of crows led her to begin investigating whether their nesting structure plays a role in the transmission of the West Nile virus. photo right: Julian Shepherd puts up traps to capture mosquitoes, the bearers of the deadly West Nile virus. After capturing the mosquitoes, Shepherd must determine whether they belong to one of the species that typically carry the disease. Of the 65 species found in New York, only a few harbor the West Nile virus.

Like mountain climbers assailing a peak from different slopes, researchers Julian Shepherd and Anne Clark are using different approaches to reach a common goal. Shepherd, an expert on insects, and Clark, an authority on the social behavior of birds, are working on two separate research projects that may have an impact on New York state's three-year-old battle against the West Nile virus.

An associate professor of biological sciences, Shepherd has been working with the Broome County Department of Environmental Health since last summer, collecting and identifying mosquitoes for virus testing. The University's unofficial entomologist, Shepherd received additional training in mosquito surveillance and identification before starting his research.

Clark, also an associate biology professor, is extending her studies of crows to determine their role in spreading the deadly virus.

It's a common misconception that there are only a few different kinds of mosquitoes, Shepherd said, pointing out that there are about 65 species in New York state. Their biology can differ quite a lot."

It's important to know the differences, he added." Different mosquitoes have different likelihoods of carrying the virus," he said.

Collecting and identifying mosquitoes has become an important element in the fight against West Nile, a mosquito-borne virus that can cause encephalitis, a potentially fatal swelling of the brain. Since 1999, the virus has been responsible for eight deaths and more than 65 serious illnesses in the New York metropolitan region alone.

Using a $2,400 Broome County grant, Shepherd and two undergraduate assistants collect, identify and test mosquitoes.

Shepherd uses small nets to collect mosquito larvae from breeding areas such as sewers, storm drains, swimming pools and other sites with standing water. Adult mosquitoes are captured with both nets and traps.

Shepherd uses two types of traps to collect adult specimens. The first attracts mosquitoes through light and carbon dioxide emissions the mosquitoes can smell. Mosquitoes attracted to the trap are sucked into a collection net by a small fan.

The second type of trap, a gravid trap, is designed to capture egg-bearing females. Gravid-trapped mosquitoes have fed at least once before laying their eggs and are more likely to carry the virus.

The second phase of the research involves identifying captured mosquitoes and larvae. Specimens are frozen with Dry Ice and identified using mosquito guides. The mosquitoes are sorted by types likely to carry the virus, including Aedes triseriatus, Aedes vexans, Culex restuans and Culex pipiens, also known as the Northern house mosquito.

C. pipiens is the most likely vector for transmitting the virus to humans, Shepherd said. While it primarily feeds on American crows, it will occasionally feed on humans and other mammals when the need arises. It's this propensity that increases the likelihood of passing the disease on.

West Nile has been particularly harmful to crows," Shepherd said.

After collecting and identifying mosquitoes, Shepherd sends selected specimens to Albany for testing. Last fall, he sent in more than a dozen samples, all of which tested negative. He noted that more than a dozen birds tested positive during the same period.

Clark is investigating West Nile from the crow's vantage point. She is collaborating with Kevin McGowan, curator and senior research associate in charge of the ornithology and mammalogy collections at Cornell University, on a project to examine how social behavior can put crows at risk for the virus or possibly protect them. They are currently seeking funding for the project from the National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control.

"Essentially, we're marrying a threat to crows with our interest in avian social behavior," Clark said.

Since 1998, Clark has collaborated with McGowan on demographic and behavioral research on crows in the Ithaca area.

Clark said she developed a long-term interest in crows and their behavior in part because they aren't migratory."They maintain territories all year 'round," she said. "Instead of going out and breeding on their own, some of the younger crows spend many years on family territory assisting in rearing. It's a cooperative breeding situation."

And it's this kind of social behavior that may help determine how the virus is spread through crow populations and shed some light on whether it's directly communicable or wholly vector borne, Clark said. Through observation and blood testing, she also hopes to learn whether the birds are developing antibodies rather than succumbing to the disease.

Diseases like West Nile aren't previously unknown to crows." Vector-borne diseases aren't new to birds in the Northeast," said Clark, citing examples such as avian malaria, eastern equine encephalitis and St. Louis encephalitis. "Birds, including crows, just make good reservoirs. They're an essential part of the virus' maintenance cycle."

In the case of West Nile, this cycle typically doesn't include mammals. "West Nile virus is not really a mammalian disease," Clark said." Mammals get hit by mosquitoes that can't find a bird, or mosquitoes that are very broad in their food preferences," she said.

Clark looks at West Nile as just another organism trying to fulfill its genetic destiny. She said that viruses like West Nile need mosquitoes to carry them to another organism where they can replicate. The host typically develops an active infection called a viremia, during which the virus circulates through the blood stream and other bodily fluids, waiting to be picked up by another mosquito.

Mammals are not a very good link," she added.

In the future, Clark said, she wants to broaden her research to look at disease as a long-term selection pressure on animals.

"Everybody studies predators, quality of food and space, but disease is an under-appreciated selection pressure, especially in terms of the amount of mortality it causes," she said.

Clark said disease is overlooked because its effects are often invisible. When an animal is sick, it weakens and becomes easy prey for other animals or dies of starvation. "Pathogens are a much stronger evolutionary force than previously realized," she said.

As is true of Clark, Shepherd's research has opened new avenues he wants to explore. "There are some amazing holes in mosquito biology we'd like to fill in," he said.

Shepherd plans to examine various aspects of egg laying, including the chemical characteristics of the water and how mosquitoes sense the depth at which eggs are laid. He and Clark hope to collaborate on research on the relationship between how high mosquitoes forage and whether birds choose their roosting sites in relation to mosquito attacks.

"Nobody has really looked at that," Shepherd said. "Just how we're going to look at it is another question."

-- Ryan Crissy

Eric Schwartz '79 speaks at conference on democracy

Eric Schwartz '79, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., was the keynote speaker for the inaugural conference of the Center on Democratic Performance June 7-9. Schwartz, who was profiled in the spring 2000 issue of Binghamton Alumni Journal, served at the National Security Council at the White House between 1993 and 2001. From June 1998 to January 2001, Schwartz was special assistant to the President (and NSC senior director) for multilateral and humanitarian affairs. At the conference, Schwartz spoke on "Ideals as Interests: Reflections on the Challenges of Democracy Promotion."

At the conference, sponsored by the George L. Hinman Fund for Public Policy, both academic researchers and policy and program implementation specialists examined the state of the art of assessing the quality of democratic institutions and their functioning. Workshops were structured to maximize input from conference participants, and a publication incorporating participants' views on guidelines for democratic performance is forthcoming.

The Center on Democratic Performance was established in 1999 at Binghamton University as a research center of the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. Its mission is to assist the academic and policy communities in understanding the functioning and performance of democratic political institutions.

It is directed by Edward R. McMahon, research assistant professor in the Political Science Department.

For more news about Harpur College of Arts and Sciences, go to Harpur Hotline.

Decker School of Nursing

Care of elderly focus of new Decker grant

The Decker School of Nursing received a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to give all bachelor's-level students an increased exposure to geriatric nursing. Full story

School of Education and Human Development

Conference on Women as Leaders scheduled

The School of Education and Human Development's Division of Professional Development and Research will hold its "Women As Leaders Conference 2001: Strengthening Our Voices," 8:45 am to 4:30 pm Oct. 29. Merrily Dean Baker, President & CEO, Women's World Cup and former director of Intercollegiate Athletics, Michigan State University, and Michelle Berry '88, Director of Communications & Media Relations, Wells College, Aurora, New York will be the keynote speakers for the conference, which is co-sponsored by IBM Endicott. The conference includes panel discussions on Science & Engineering; Healthcare; Politics, Law & Government; and Arts, Education & Broadcasting. Topics for breakout sessions vary widely, and include "Voicing Our Stories In Fabric: Storytelling Quilts;" "Women As Change Agents: Getting Elected to Public Office;" and "From Scarlett O'Hara to Norma Rae: How Women as Role Models in Cinema Impact our Lives."

For more information and to view the conference schedule, click here, (http://sehd.binghamton.edu/pdr/index.htm) or contact Jane Angelone, Special Projects Coordinator, at angelone@binghamton.edu or phone: 607-777-4447 for more information.

School of Management

Binghamton management school hosts annual golf outing

Gary and Rina Meltzer, both '85, hosted School of Management's third annual Dean's Metro New York School of Management Alumni Challenge May 31 at the Shackamaxon Golf and Country Club in Scotch Plains, N.J. Forty-seven golfers signed up to play in this year's tournament, nearly a threefold increase from the previous year.

Guests began the day with a continental breakfast, followed by a round of golf on a very challenging course. They were also provided lunch after nine holes of play. At the conclusion, there was an open bar, hors d'oeuvres, a buffet and plenty of friends catching up with each other and enjoying the camaraderie of their Binghamton past.

This year's tournament was blessed with great weather and several interesting firsts. The tournament attracted its first father-daughter team, Kristin Fallon '00 and father, Joseph Fallon; first husband-wife team, Gary and Rina Meltzer; and its first women ever -- Fallon, Meltzer and Tammy Arnett, chief of recruiting for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

All participants, regardless of handicaps, walked away with wonderful prizes. Each player received an Estee Lauder gratis bag, a sleeve of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP golf balls, and a mug and golf towel from the University.

Prizes were awarded to Chuck Dickson, director, Binghamton University Office of Alumni and Parent Relations, and Jon Perkins for getting closest to the pin. The team of Rich Leroy '77, Ron Deutsch '79, Brian Semler '78 and Steve Farbman won as low-net team. Steve Kernkraut '70, Rob Jacobson, Harris Reitman, and Bob Kamins won as low-gross team.

Individual prizes were awarded to Kristin Fallon for "most honest golfer" and "low net, women"; Leroy for "low net, men"; Greg Marcincuk '98 for "low gross, men"; and Deutsch for "longest drive."

The success of the tournament is rooted in the support it receives from its sponsors and their employees, who make it happen. School of Management would like to thank the following companies and individuals who sponsored a hole:

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP -- Gary Meltzer '85

Deloitte & Touche LLP -- Mark Richman '75

Andersen LLP -- Gary Moran '81

Heller Financial -- Paul Horton

Estee Lauder -- Steve Blanz '82

Terrapin Capital -- Ross Goldflam '90

Mark Deutsch '81

Ron Deutsch '79

In addition to the hole sponsors, several companies and individuals stepped forward to donate prizes to help make the tournament a success. Again, School of Management extends its gratitude to the following:

Estee Lauder and Steve Blanz '82 -- 60 gratis bags of women's cosmetics

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and Gary Meltzer '85 — 180 golf balls

John W. Walker '78 -- Four New York Yankees game tickets

Nabisco and Mike Marzano '83 -- Three gift packages

SelectWineLLC.com and John D'Aquila '86 -- Case of wine

School of Management and Binghamton University Alumni Association -- Golf shirts, towels, mugs, cooler and grill set

The fourth annual outing will be held, as was this one, at the Shackamaxon Golf and Country Club, in May 2002. Watch for details as the date draws near.

-- Alan Greene

Pitman steps down as dean of School of Management
Citing family health needs, Dean Glenn Pitman stepped down as dean of School of Management effective July 1. He will continue to serve as a full-time faculty member in the school. Pitman said his wife's declining health requires that he spend more time on family issues. Pitman will pursue research in the fall and resume teaching responsibilities in the spring semester.

Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science

BU research goes on display

A project that last winter earned a cool $2 million grant will heat up again this summer as Binghamton University's Integrated Electronics Engineering Center helps an Endicott-based flat-panel display manufacturer boost production of bigger, clearer and cheaper television display screens.

Rainbow Displays, Inc. (RDI) of Endicott is teaming up with Binghamton University, Cornell University and Kaiser Electronics of San Jose, Calif., to develop large "tiled" liquid crystal displays. The displays will be used in a variety of next-generation consumer

and business applications. The partnerships were formalized this past winter when Rainbow Displays was awarded a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Advanced Technology Program.

"Competition for these grants is always fierce," said Bahgat Sammakia, director of the Integrated Electronics Engineering Center. More than 400 proposals ranging from pharmaceutical design, tissue engineering and electronics manufacturing were reviewed by the program in 2000. Awards are based on scientific and technical merit as well as potential benefits to the U.S. economy, he added.

"The fact that our project was recognized as a potential contributor to future U.S. technological advances is a real honor," Sammakia said.