I'm a New Zealand high school teacher. My boss is starting to jump up & down about No Child Left Behind. He likes it. Apparently in meetings he's had with the Minister of Education there has been favourable talk about it. I've just come from a staff meeting where we read some articles on NCLB and associated issues. I'm wondering if people with experience with NCLB can give me their thoughts on it? Is it a success? What problems are there? How does test-based accountability of teachers work? What sanctions, if any, result from failure to meet standards? What are the rewards for meeting them? How much pressure is on schools, department heads, teachers to make sure standards are reached? Lots of questions, sorry, just whatever experience anyone has had would be useful. Thanks.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I'd love to answer, but I'm swamped with work right now. If you can wait, maybe in a week or so I can add my thoughts.
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Thanks Icarus, know the feeling. Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Same here...I'm in college now working on getting my teaching certification and I have PLENTY to say about NCLB from the perspective of someone trying to get certified, but it's finals time for me. You just asked at a bad time. Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
In short--no, it does not work. It further accentuates the socieconomic gap between rich schools and poor schools.
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Thanks, Launchy. How does it do that?
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Appreciate the difficulty of timing. I'm flying out to the US tomorrow to spend Christmas with our children and grandchildren, so would love to have whatever responses anyone can give me today, but am happy to wait as well so that you can give more considered responses.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Want to know the most screwed up part of NCLB? EVERY child is included. Students with severe disibilities are expected to improve by the same rate as everyone else. Schools with more inclusion, or those with special education programs with more students, are going to have a much harder time keeping pace with other schools.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
Another problem is that there is no threshold for NCLB. Schools are expected to continue to improve over time, regardless as to varying local conditions, and irrespective of current success rates. If a school is at 99%, it's still expected to show improvement. And watch out if it backslides to, say, 95%...
-Bok
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Thanks for your comments so far guys, appreciate the information. Are the problems a result of the fundamental philosophy, or with the implementation? Are some areas of the country handling it better than others?
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Texas, especially the Dallas or perhaps the Houston school district handled it very well.
They cooked the books.
They cheated,
and had such wonderful results on paper that the Superintendent went on to head the Department of Education under the current President Bush, and enact the policy nationwide.
I'm sorry I can't access news sites to supply proof.
My biggest thought is that the President and several conservatives are attempting to use this as a way to subsidise parochial schools. In other words, there are bits in the law that allow children in poor-performing schools to go to "another school of their choice." This could mean religious schools, and the school districts would be forced to pay such parochial schools to take their children.
[ December 06, 2006, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Dan_raven ]
Posted by David Bowles (Member # 1021) on :
Well-intentioned, poorly thought-out and implemented. Typical of bureaucratic solutions to problems that require a mixture of real humanitarianism and good ol' fashioned competition.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
Houston school district definetely cheated. The tests were administered to tenth graders at the time. So, they kept everyone back who would fail and then said, well, two years at 9th grade level is good enough to let you be an 11th grader. HISD teachers still talk about the craziness under him. I miss good ole Rod Paige. But that was actually pre-NCLB, though his policies were the basis of NCLB.
Another problem is if a school is doing bad, the principal often goes with a "blame the teacher" philosophy. So, at my husband's last school, the principal said everyone who did not meet the standards would not get new contracts. (This is actually when my husband said enough, I can't take anymore of this crap and left teaching). Now, pretty much none of the new teachers made standards. Also, the worst departments were science and math. So, all those teachers gone, replaced with usually new teachers with no experience. The principal, having failed to make adequate progress, also must go. Lucky for her, she has enough seniority to be made an assistant superintendent with a pay raise. The vice principal is offered the job but refuses because she knows she isn't high enough to survive the school failing with a nice raise. So, the next year, we have 20-50% of the math and science teachers being brand new, with a brand new principal. One school near us has not had the same principal for two years straight in the past 4 years. And the scores still don't rise. Indeed, things seem to be getting worse.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
Schools have to count the children there at the time of testing. This means in the school my mom teaches at, where they have an 80% transient rate througout one school year (this is the second highest in our school system) they are held accountable for all students there when the tests are given. This means that students who move in that week from who knows where, possibly never being in public school before are included. The teachers and administration at that school are then held responsible for things that they had no control over.
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
This stuff is a little scary. Are there any positives to the program?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I wish the federal government would get out of education completely.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I wish the federal government would get out of education completely.
public education is still VERY valuable, and I am all for the government funding it. But yes their policies typically suck.
Cashew: I see the NCLB policy as being similar to socialism. Works great if people are honest, but honestly it doesn't work so great.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
The NEA did a pretty thorough study of the implications and applications of the NCLB act.
Their conclusion was that it hurts more than it helps. "Unfunded mandate" or "Underfunded mandate" is the best way to describe it. The system is now thought to be essentially a crude wedge for transfer to charter school systems that didn't work out so hot for charter school advocates either. Many states are essentially (via policy) in open revolt against the system,
Really, I was instantly inclined to doubt the system when I discovered that it was giving some schools less federal NCLB money than it would take to do the institutional paperwork required to be a part of the program.
Then, there's the seedy part of the requirements procedure, already touched upon. Student categories are lumped together, and each lump has to pass or fail on percentage merit, regardless of sample size. If your school has three special education students, than they're a 'group' that has to pass the baseline requirements. Even if by some miracle they're all three capable of passing the test at a sufficient level, one of them could be absent on testing day, and the special education group as a whole fails.
And if any group fails, the school fails. Doesn't matter how stellar the rest of the school does! Essentially, it's punishing schools that equip themselves to attract and assist special needs children, punishing the schools who end up with these students.
The federal government really needed to do something to maintain the state of poor and rural schools -- especially in high ESL districts -- which have been crippled by the inadvisable practice of localized funding. Instead, they can just huck them away into an experimental dumping ground. Schools labeled 'in need of improvement' simply lose the funding and are ordered into a bizarre mandate for charter school applicability.
It needs a bit of an overhaul.
Posted by Tyler (Member # 9930) on :
i dont know about the new zealand govt, but here its basically not the 'no child left behind' rather, 'every child left behind.' it makes the assumption that every one can improve at the same rate, thus those who would normally ahead are not challenged, cirriculam is dropped to make room for more time spent on simple concepts, advanced courses are abandoned completly because of low class sizes.
basically a pull to get people into private schools, instead of public.it seems as if the republican party is doing everything they can to destroy public education. (thats just my opinion)
Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
I don't think you'll find many teachers in favor of this program (my father included). I've heard too many negative things about it. Many teachers on Hatrack have expressed their frustration. Basically, it sounds great on paper but isn't practical.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Not to mention that it strongly equates "standardized test success" with "student learning" - which is not very wise.
Posted by MandyM (Member # 8375) on :
NCLB really means wait until everyone catches up, even those who, because of learning difficulties or other issues, never will.
In Texas, we have been living with this for years. Not much has changed other than we get even less money than before and now we have to hold kids back if they don't pass the test.
Padding was going on before NCLB. In 3rd grade, if a kid wasn't going to pass the test and had a Spanish surname, they went to ESL, even if the household was not Spanish speaking. Heck, sometimes there was no Spanish at all in the home! Students with any other surname went to special ed. By the time they got to junior high, their exemptions had run out and they had to take the test even though they had been shuttled into easier classes that focused on non-tested curriculum.
Now schools are told not to retain kids in 1st grade, even if they can't read. They have to save those retentions for 3rd grade since they are required to keep a student back who doesn't pass the test. But the parent can override that and ask that the kid be moved on. The principal can decide to pass the kid. The teacher can recommend that the kid move on. So now we have a kid in 3rd grade who can't read but everyone pushes him through using loopholes in the law requiring them to hold him back. By the time I get him in 7th grade, he has given up on school and spends his time causing trouble. If he had just been held back in 1st grade, he would be able to read.
NCLB doesn't help teachers, it doesn't help students, and it doesn't help administrators. Who does it help? Politicians?
Posted by Cashew (Member # 6023) on :
Thanks everyone, I've cut and pasted your comments and posted them on our staff noticeboard. Apparently our current government is looking at it... Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I wish the federal government would get out of education completely.
public education is still VERY valuable, and I am all for the government funding it.
I too am all for funding public education.
My beef is with the federal government doing it. I want it back in the hands of the states.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
I'm just wondering, is there anyone that likes NCLB? Teachers don't, students don't, who does?
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
My husband once had to go through all his students old test scores. From them, he picked out three groups- kids who passed easily, kissed who were borderline and kids who failed badly. He was then supposed to ignore the kids who did well, because they would still pass without much help. The kids who failed miserably were not going to pass no matter what he did, so ignore them too. So, the kids who were right in the middle were the only ones he was supposed to spend time helping. Otherwise, he was being unproductive with his time. And I am completely serious- the administrators told him to ignore those students.
Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
"I'm just wondering, is there anyone that likes NCLB? Teachers don't, students don't, who does?"
Politicians who like the word "accountability" and the voters who are dumb enough to fall for it.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by blacwolve: I'm just wondering, is there anyone that likes NCLB? Teachers don't, students don't, who does?
It certainly puts a lot more power into the hands of politicians and beaurecrats.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I think your opinion about NCLB depends on the school district you live in. Ours was completely abysmal, we were absolutely failing to educate our students. Before NCLB about 15% our 5th graders were proficent at a 5th grade level. Our district would only lower standards year after year. Because we had so many seniors who attended 12+ years of school that could not read or write we made 2 diplomas. You can now graduate from high school and get an official Diploma even if you cannot read or write at a first grade level. One Diploma says you have met requirements, the other says you have not met requirements. Our district felt it was too unfair that most students could not mark down that they had a high school diploma or that would not be able to graduate. This is just a tiny part of the massive problems we faced. Every year we spent more and more money, and things got worse and worse. Then NCLB came along and in only a few short years we made sweeping changes in every grade level in every school. We set high standards, we made all middle and elementary schools teach the same things in each subjects according to a unified district calendar, plus many other changes and our test scores shot up. In only two years some of lowest performing schools went from 15% proficient to 50% and higher proficient. None of this would have ever occured without NCLB. I know there are flaws with NCLB but holding school districts Like the one I am in accountable for their actions and decisions would never have been possible without NCLB. NCLB is what you make of it. Most schools want to fight it because they don't want to have to produce results. They want to blame everything else for low test scores. Our district is proof that those are just excuses. I still hear all the time that NCLB is so wrong for us because we will never have test scores like our 'rich' neighbors will. To me, that just undermines the simple fact that, due to teachers hard work in setting and meeting goals, we are seeing amazing improvements. If the problem we have is that 85% of our kids are proficient while the 'rich' kids in the other districts are at 98% then I will be much happier. Like I said, this is what happened in my district, I am sure other districts have different stories. In my experience, most schools are run by inexperienced managers who only make decisions when things are a 'crisis', instead of acting and planning ahead of time to solve problems.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Dark Knight, that's an awesome story. I knew I had read about cases where great improvement was seen after NCLB came out, but I didn't have specifics.
Posted by Stephan (Member # 7549) on :
Oh yeah, on the matter of the standardized testing. Teachers are being forced to spend too much time teaching how to take the tests, rather then actual knowledge that might help the kids do better on them.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
That's an encouraging post, DarkKnight. I can see how the idea did work well for your district.
My only problem (I'm a parent, not a teacher) is the whole idea of using "tests" as the indicator. We all know there are kids who are very bright who don't perform well on standardized tests. I don't like using written tests as an indicator of much of anything.
However, since I have no alternative to propose that I think would be better, or as uniform, as standardized tests, I can't really say much.
FG
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
quote:Want to know the most screwed up part of NCLB? EVERY child is included. Students with severe disibilities are expected to improve by the same rate as everyone else. Schools with more inclusion, or those with special education programs with more students, are going to have a much harder time keeping pace with other schools.
This was the biggest problem we had at my school. At times a student's difficulties were entirely unrelated to the faculty's ability to teach the material. The tests don't take this into account.
--j_k
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:We set high standards, we made all middle and elementary schools teach the same things in each subjects according to a unified district calendar, plus many other changes and our test scores shot up.
You make this sound like a positive, and maybe it is for your school, but in my kids' school this whole "teach the same thing to a unified curriculum" is stifling good teachers. My daughter's first grade teacher told me honestly that she was aghast at the spelling words she had to give my daughter and the rest of her class but her hands are completely tied. Because regulation on what must be taught is so strict now, she - a 20 year veteran with a master's degree and multiple teaching awards - is not considered competent enough to set her own lesson plans. Sure, there should be guidelines so kids are basically learning the same stuff, but they've taken that to the extreme that teachers have no say whatsoever in what they teach and how they teach it. We may as well replace them with automatons since we aren't relying on their expertise and knowledge anymore - they're just spitting out whatever they're told to spit out. I'd much rather put my trust in my daughter's education in the teacher that I know and interact with face to face than I would some beaureaucrat in Washington or Montgomery who does not know my child and doesn't see her and work with her every day. We talk about how teachers are highly trained professionals and should be paid more and given more respect then we implement these programs that don't give them the basic respect of assuming they are competent enough to do the job they were trained for.
At the same time, NCLB has made certification so difficult and confusing that the state can't even figure out what should be in the college curriculum to graduate "highly qualified teachers" so they change it constantly. And every time they change it, a student like me has to change along with them. Unlike other schools in the university system, if the school of education makes a change to your degree requirements, you must meet it even if you're in the final semester. There have been people about to graduate, doing their student teaching, who had to come back and take more college classes before getting their certification because the state said that they couldn't be certified without a course in young adult literature. I myself have had two more classes added to my degree, which I have to take now and my advisor said they were expecting more changes soon and I would have to meet whatever else they come up with.
I'm already in a double major program and they keep adding requirements. I wouldn't be so frustrated if I thought those classes would actually help me to be a better teacher, but they're just ridiculous requirements. I took Music as my core fine art, which in any other school at the university would be considered adequate to fill my fine art requirement except this one. No, I have to take history of Theatre instead. So that's one credit I have to repeat. I can't graduate now without a course in young adult literature. That does make some kind of sense, actually, except they added it to my degree instead of allowing that lit credit to replace one of my many other required lit classes - Young Adult lit would be so much more relevant and helpful than say, British Literature after 1660, but I have to take both. I'm required to have a multi-cultural lit class, which to any other English major means either a World Lit Survey or African-American lit. To an English/Education double major, though, it means both.
The list like that goes on and on. I have to take at least 15 hours of additional English coursework that the English majors don't have to take. Think about that for a second - the requirements for an English degree from the School of Education are stricter than the requirements from the actual English department. I haven't even begun to list all the requirements from the School of Education yet. I could graduate with a bachelor's in English and then get a master's in English in the same amount of hours it's going to take me to get a bachelor's level teaching certificate in English. I can be qualified to teach at the junior college level easier than I can be qualified at the middle or high school level. And that's what many people do, which is why we have a shortage of secondary teachers, especially in the core subjects. They've enacted programs in the state to make it easier for people with degrees in math and science to get certified, but not for English or the social sciences so we're still stuck wading through the mountainous lists of requirements. Even if I graduated with a bachelor's in English and came back to get certified at the master's level I'd be required to take all these classes at the undergrad level, I checked.
And after all that training, I probably won't even be trusted by the govt to actually teach English.
quote:Most schools want to fight it because they don't want to have to produce results. They want to blame everything else for low test scores. Our district is proof that those are just excuses.
Of course I can't comment on what is happening at your school but this is plain insulting. You can't make a blanket statement that school districts who don't like NCLB are just making excuses. For one thing, for every district like yous that wasn't doing its job before, there are plenty who WERE. Yet they're treated the same.
And the cold, hard fact of the matter is this - sometimes there ARE other factors affecting kids performance besides the teacher and the school being lazy and not wanting to do their job. Teachers can only do so much if they don't have the cooperation of the parents at home. NCLB can put all the test score requirements in place it wants to, but it can't follow kids home and make sure their parents read to them or that they're encouraged to do their homework. Yet, the teacher is held accountable for things she cannot possibly control.
And I really do have too much to do to continue ranting about this....
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
My knock against NCLB is that there wasn't enough talk about what we were going to test and why before we started making tests and doling them out. I think that's why so many districts are cooking books. The teachers and the administrators don't respect the test which they are being made to teach.
If we want to offer everyone the same education, great. If we want to offer everyone a good education, great. But first, we have to figure out how those two statement relate to one another, including the long national dialogue about what constitutes a well-educated young American. And here is the sticker, I don't think we should go forward until people are on the same page for the right reasons.
I'm a little worried that the series of tests turns school into a credentialing program, where students aren't setting themselves on a path to learn for the rest of their life and become better people, rather, they are learning to pass the next test and make themselves more marketable. And as sad as it when I meet someone who dropped out of high school, I'm just disturbed be people like this guy and still be morally repugnant when he graduates.
I imagine the first question should be how it's possible that we are graduating illiterates, but the second, and equal vital question should concern how it's the case that so many of the people who are metriculating are morally disgusting.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
It's a problem at my mother's school. Because my hometown is an old colonial port city, 2 of the 3 elementary schools are not completely handicap accessible. This means that nearly all special needs kids are sent to my mother's school. On top of that, the special needs program in my hometown/at my mother's school are actually pretty darn good, so you get some amount of school choice transfers. As a result, my mother's school is always in fear of failing the NCLB requirements because they have a larger percentage of at-risk kids, but the tests don't care about that.
I have 3 teachers in my family, ranging in experience from <1 year to >30 years, and none of them have anything nice to say about NCLB. I'm inclined to agree with them.
Which isn't to say NCLB can't be helpful in certain situations. It's just suboptimal, and we shouldn't settle for suboptimal, because some schools are helped. We should find a way that will help those schools, and help others on top of that.
I think reducing federal educational mandates would be a good start. Note, that doesn't mean funding, which I think can be helpful in evening out school budget disparaties, and can help ameliorate certain issues with programs like school lunch administration.
-Bok
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What would y'all put into place instead?
quote:I think reducing federal educational mandates would be a good start. Note, that doesn't mean funding, which I think can be helpful in evening out school budget disparaties, and can help ameliorate certain issues with programs like school lunch administration.
Hmm...I read this as "Give the schools more money but don't ask questions about what they do with it."
I don't think that's a good idea.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
Ultimately, whether it comes at the local, state, or federal level, it's what we do. How restrictive do you want to be? I don't mind saying that percentages of general aid must find certain subjects, or that grants have similar restrictions of use, but NCLB's biggest problem is that it hamstrings schools. We need to deal in good faith with schools.
I also assume that overall funding can be lower because we aren't paying people to be watchdogs over the systems. My particular though was that federal founding ought to help counteract funding imbalances so that schools in the same system, or local group of systems can be more equitably funded, therefore allowing us to have a better reason to expect similar results (though we shouldn't go too far with expecting exactly the same results across all schools, since socio-econmic [i.e. home life] realities can skew that).
-Bok
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That's the problem with money - the entity handing out the money expects to have a say. Requesting funds but rejecting oversight isn't going to work.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
katharina, the large majority of funding that schools receive is local and state, not federal. I personally think local control is best, put the power in the hands of the people who actually live there and have kids in those schools and care about them. In other words, let local school boards have control with state oversight.
Of course there should be standards, the state should decide what is necessary for a high school diploma to be granted, but let the schools have some say in how they get the students to that point. Instead, they assign some standardized test and the teachers have to teach to those tests instead of actually teaching.
Take my oldest's math class for example. She's in an accelerated algebra program right now. But for the last two weeks they haven't talked about algebra. Why? Because algebra is not on the standardized test they're about to take, and the school tells her algebra teacher she must spend 3 weeks before the test reviewing what is going to be on it. These are advanced students, who are supposed to be learning algebra and she is drilling them on order of operations and reducing fractions so they can score well on the assessment test. Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I am aware of how school funding is structured.
The only problem I can see for teaching to the test is if what is on the test is not what students should learn. Is this the case?
I am not talking about the outliers - I mean, if the tests are testing things that don't matter, then teaching to the test is a problem. If the tests are written well, then teaching to the test is less of one.
There are wild variations in results from local control. There are school districts like my high school in Texas which was a model of how things should work, and then there are schools like those I volunteered at in inner city Detroit.
I really like the idea of No Child Left Behind, and I think it is well named. I don't think we should create national policy that benefits the best/luckiest students and let the rest of the students just suck it up when their schools are bad.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I agree with David Bowles. (I will amplify when I can.)
I don't hate NCLB. I think it has serious, serious flaws and was poorly thought out in the particulars and in the implementation.
Cashew, where in the States are you visiting?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:My biggest thought is that the President and several conservatives are attempting to use this as a way to subsidise parochial schools. In other words, there are bits in the law that allow children in poor-performing schools to go to "another school of their choice." This could mean religious schools, and the school districts would be forced to pay such parochial schools to take their children.
I absolutely DO NOT believe this is a sneaky attempt to subsidize parochial schools. Most private schools are parochial - that's a byproduct.
I think this is an attempt to introduce a little competition and capitialism into a system that has had neither and could use a healthy dose of it. Competition really can make things better. The problem with competition is that there is a loser - in this case, the schools who are losing funding. The fact that there is a loser in this scenario is not enough to want me to reject the scenario if the student ultimately benefits. The school system is not set up to take of the teachers and administrators but the students.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
From an "early childhood education" perspective, NCLB has really harmed what pre-K is all about. And what grade K is all about for that matter. This is especially poignant at a time when most children really do need some sort of counter-balance to the massive amounts of rather innappropriate exposure to both content/quality AND quantity of screen time (TV, videos, videogames, movies, computers, electronic gadgets of all sorts that encourage passivity), junk foods, multiple caregivers, inside time, etc.
Children need play-based learning experiences. What a phrase, eh? Young children need the opportunities to explore their environments, move their bodies, develop gross and fine motor skills that support later cognitive learning, chances to learn the social skills required for a later school-style classroom experience (i.e., taking turns, listening, sharing their thoughts and ideas, sitting still for a period of time, etc.)
Unfortunately, NCLB has continually pushed down the "blame" and the "responsibility" to teachers working with young learners (pre-K through 3rd) so that what used to be standard grade K fare we now find in pre-K. With NO measurable means of showing that this has improved anything at all, and lots of experienced voices sharing the anecdotal evidence of how much worse it is getting.
The unfortunate reality is that many schools are both trying to educate kids on the cognitive gaps as well as pick up the pieces of missed learning opportunities that used to make those early years so rich, and set the stage for later academic or vacational learning.
Apart from my dislike of NCLB, I have just as much a dislike of "state regulated" learning systems, if only because they are so administratively top-heavy and bleed the funding to support all these admin jobs outside of the classroom, where the real work is happening. NCLB is just one piece of the federal funding puzzle, remember. There are federal dollars tied to transportation, school breakfast and lunch, special education, sports programs, teacher training, etc. And unfortunately, the federal government creates massive and unwieldy administrative systems to keep these programs going, which in turn breed state and district behemoths.
All right . . . enough of my soap box. *smile*
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
Kat, the problem is, the idea, despite your affinity for it, appears to be mediocre at best, and a bureaucratic boondoggle that is harming children at worst.
Some problems with the test only issue include those that naturally don't test well. In the long run, standardized testing is not a very useful life-skill, and yet a disproportionate amount time is used to study up for them. The other issue is that, especially at the early-ed level, kids have wildly varying abilities, and that includes their emotional as well as intellectual abilities. My mom often sees kids that start the year not knowing their alphabet, or numbers, or can even sit still for very long. Should that child be expected to reach at the end of the year the same level as another kid who is more well prepared? Or should the fact that they learned the alphabet, numbers, a little bit of addition, and can now properly grasp a pencil and sit long enough to write two sentences be given some consideration, even if they are supposed to have a solid grasp of addition/subtraction, as well as a simple understanding of what a paragraph is?
Now, ultimately we should expect the less prepared kid to try and catch up, but there are issues outside of the school's control that can be a roadblock (family frequently moves, no decent nutrition at home, no educational reinforcement at home) that would keep these children from meeting the standards eventually. Sure, at some point it should be recommended they stay back to catch up to the grade level, if they are particularly behind, but to create a simple threshold for these kids (especially, as I said, at K-4 levels) is wrongheaded, because you end up with kids who don't get gym, art, music, science, or history, because they need to meet certain language arts and math requirements that take up the bulk of the school year to study up on. Further, every year it is not unreasonable to expect it to get worse, because you are forced to continually get better, even if you are already at a high level.
-Bok
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Bokonon, I am not convinced of the idea's uselessnes despite your calling it such.
I KNOW there are roadblocks and reasons for lower performance in some kids. What I want to hear is this: what you propose that would be different that would help? Better-funded "More of the Same" isn't acceptable.
I know there are problems and I hear the complaints, but I don't nearly as many ideas as to what to do differently beyond "let everyone decide for themselves." The letting-everyone-decide-for-themselves ended with some students getting really screwed over, and that's not okay. I'm open to other suggestions - I'm just not hearing them.
Those who don't like NCLB, what, specifically, are features of the alternative you would prefer?
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
quote:introduce a little competition and capitialism
That is what NCLB is. It is bringing market to the educational system.
So what is the first thing you need when you go to market? A good or service to sell.
What are schools selling? Education.
How do you measure education? You can't measure the weight of thoughts put in the minds fo students. You can't measure the ideas, the play time learning, the IQ's of students.
Grades? Yes Grades, but grades are not fair. A great teacher may give a C on one test, while a terrible teach may give an A on a much easier test. No, you can't sell grades unless they are measurable across districts.
The only way to do that, is testing. Hence statewide tests are not created to teach students. They were created to give NCLB a product to sell.
So you have a product to sell, or trade for $ and kids.
The fact that such test scores don't equate exactly to learning is besides the point of many NCLB supporters.
The next thing you need is a nice marketing push. Give this a name. "Captalistic Education" sounds a bit too high brow. "No Child Left Behind" should win the hearts and minds of those who don't want to think to hard.
How does this system insure no child is left behind? You cut funds from schools without the grades and the kids left in that school get, well, left behind. I'm confused so I assume the name is just marketing.
(See the Wikipedia article noted above for other fun marketing tactics used to sell this.)
The big problem of bringing a market based economy to education is that, if you fail in the market, your company closes. Your employees can find other jobs. You can find another job. If a school district fails in the NCLB economy the teachers and the administrators can find jobs elsewhere, but the kids may not be able to find another school.
Say 100 kids from Joe's School decide to move to a school that is getting good test scores. What school would accept them and risk lowering their own test scores.
But the worst thing I find about NCLB is not the "Christian School agenda" that is probably more my own fantasy than reality. Its not the problems that could be worked out.
Its the way it was implemented over the objections of anyone who questioned it. There was no discussion, no debate, no attempt to fix flaws. Anyone who questioned NCLB was marked as a greedy Teachers Union jackal just protecting their own cushy income. Heck, the head of the Department of Education called the head of the Teachers Union a Terrorist for their attempts to slow down and fix NCLB.
I agree this could be fixed into a workable project, but the present administration prefers to order things done their way than risk being shown wrong on details when calm discussions could occur.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: You make this sound like a positive, and maybe it is for your school, but in my kids' school this whole "teach the same thing to a unified curriculum" is stifling good teachers.
I think this is a function of the leadership at your schools. I don't think that NCLB is making your school teach the same thing at the same time to all students for a specific grade. For us, with a student body that moves several times within the district every year we could not and did not function without a unified calendar. Your student body could be much more stable and therefore wouldn't need a unified school calendar. However, your school district leadership is the one who decided to unify everything, not a mandate from NCLB. I sympathize with you completely on the ever changing qualification needs of new teachers. They seem to be nonsensical and arbitrary at best sometimes. That too is usually set by your state not NCLB.
quote: Teachers are being forced to spend too much time teaching how to take the tests, rather then actual knowledge that might help the kids do better on them.
If the only reason why students are doing poorly on the tests is because they don't know how to take them, then shouldn't we teach them how? How hard can it be to teach them to properly take a test, especially a standard test that they will be taking many times? I guess to me if they can't learn to fill in a bubble or whatever method is being used then there are bigger issues than simply not knowing how to take a test. Learning how to take a test can be a lifelong skill for a student to learn. My thoughts on school improvement focus mostly on improving the leadership at the schools, and vastly improving leadership at the District levels. Teachers need good leaders to let them do their jobs as best as they can. I know in PA you can get your Principal certification without taking a single 'people' management course. As Belle mentioned earlier, the leadership at her district have set up a 'stifling' enviornment which does not sound necessary at her school. Every district is unique, and each school in each district is unique. I also wonder if many people are confused as to who sets what standards to be taught at each grade level too. Also, Belle, you are correct and I did overgeneralize my statements about schools not wanting to support NCLB. I'm too used to discussing this as a local issue with our surrounding districts and not as a more national issue. I do apologize for making that too general of a statement. I get excited and passionate about school improvement and how to make things better and forget to type out more to keep the proper context.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
Hmm...I have to say that test scores seem to me to the best of a lot of lousy options. Grades are all over the place - you can't compare them.
I can't think of a better metric than test scores. I'd love to know of one.
I hear all the complaints. I believe they should be listened to and considered. I also believe that something had to change and that competition, shakeups, high standards for teachers, and the use of a metric to measure education are all useful things.
If not NCLB, then what should take its place? If NCLB is okay but badly administered, how should it be administered differently?
There's the complaint of disabled kids being required to progress as much as the rest of the school. Okay - would excepting the disabled kids from the tests make it better? What should those kids be measured by instead, or should they not be part of it at all? (I don't like that second option.)
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
My solution?
1. As a nation, we figure out how to honor, encourage, support children being raised and nurtured by one primary caregiver -- particularly in the early years. I could give a rat's patootey if it's the mother, father, grandparent . . . as long as that child has the chance to bond with a caring adult. Of course, this means changing our nation's economic structure to one friendly to one working parent supporting a family, or two working parents earning enough to afford stable, quality care for their child. It would also mean changing the nation's idea that more is better. I.e., bigger homes, more cars, bigger cars, more expensive TVs, sound systems, shows, clothes, etc. It means as a nation we provide basic medical and dental to all. Etc.
2. Local communities should be in charge of designing their local educational systems (with some basic standards). Want smaller neighborhood schools? Great? Want one huge inter-urban highschool? Peachy. Want close links to local private schools? Fine. Different states, different regions, differnt communities have different tech, social, economic needs. It makes sense that if your region houses, say Microsoft, you would want to ensure that the local workforce can both meet the demands and expectations of Microsoft as well as the "support" needs of that business and community (this is where the agriculturalists, skilled trades, day laborers, food services, caregivers, etc.) We can't all be computer programmers. Hell, some of us *gasp* don't wanna be -- we need more flexibility to provide the education and training that a diverse and economically sound community need to keep thriving. Local design, local control, and a respectful oversight by state or other entity.
3. Recognize that not all learners are the same, nor will they learn the same ways, test the same ways, respond to teaching techniques the same ways -- and give teachers the right, the responsibility, and the incentive to teach the student, not teach to a mandatory test. With mandatory, standardized testing (and mind you, those tests are designed by individualized states -- and not necessarily means-tested) tied to financial gain or loss for the school, a system has been put in place that flies in the face of the idea of the individual learner and capacity, strengths, weaknesses, goals, dreams, etc.
4. Recognize that not all people need or want to be a high-paid corporate executive. There's both room and need for folks of all stripes in our nation -- and we need folks interested in all these different options. We also need an economic system in place that honors and values the contributions of the custodian as much as the bank teller, the artist, the construction worker, the accountant, the stay-at-home caregiver, the teacher, the waitress, our armed forces, etc. . .
5. Teach the basics first. Babies generally learn to roll over before sitting, crawl and stand before walking. Children need the chance to learn the basic 3R's -- and these are not learned through testing. These are learned by DOING. Repeatedly. Over and over again. Competent teachers know this and offer the same material in the early ed years many times using many different approaches. Children also learn best when they have plenty of opportunity for fresh air and gross motor movement (we used to call that recess), plenty of down time (we used to call that nap time, quiet reading time, head on the desk time), healthy foods (that used to mean things like tuna casserole and vegetables, milk, and a small cookie as opposed to pizza, hot dogs, chips, fries, soda). Children used to get exposure to "making" things with their hands (we called that art class), learning to use their voices together in a group (we called that music), and Figuring out how to play a physical game according to rules and sportsmanship (that would be gym).
Hmmm. I could offer a few more ideas, but that's enough to go on. Sadly, I really doubt any of these ideas would ever come to fruition. But, hey! I always console myself that when I'm empress, all these things will come to pass. Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:If the only reason why students are doing poorly on the tests is because they don't know how to take them, then shouldn't we teach them how?
This right here is a major underlying problem of NCLB.
That's exactly what we end up doing - teaching them how to take standardized tests, instead of teaching them to understand the concepts that the tests are supposed to be evaluating.
There is a lot to learn - and more, a lot of repetition of learning needed to solidify concepts. Taking time away from needed concepts to teach standardized testtaking skills is not helping student learning in any way.
It is possible to teach strategy that will improve test scores without improving student understanding of the concepts being tested.
Because test scores are more important than student learning, more and more schools are requiring their teachers to spend a large percentage of their time on test preparation rather than the basic concepts of their subject.
When I was teaching middle school math last year, the year broke down like this:
182 school days in the year
5 days of state testing 6 days of "benchmark" testing designed to improve scores 6 days going over the benchmark assessments 8 days of "mandatory tasks" designed like state testing questions 8 days going over the mandatory tasks 20 days (estimate) of graded tests (one every other week, which were supposed to be written in the style of the standardized tests) 10 days (estimate) going over said tests (half a period for each)
That's 53 days where students were either being tested, or reviewing tests. This does not include scattered quizzes throughout the year.
That's a full 30% of the year where new subject matter is not being taught.
Add in the quizzes, assemblies, field trips, presentations, fire drills, etc, and you're talking 40% or more of the year with no new subject matter being presented.
Take out the 35 days devoted to standardized testing and test preparation, and you give 20% of the year back to the teacher - or one day in every five, one day a week.
Eliminating standardized testing and the need for standardized test preparation gives you an extra day every week.
I know I sure could have used that extra day trying to cover our math curriculum.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
That's a great list, Shan. Thank you for posting it.
quote:3. Recognize that not all learners are the same, nor will they learn the same ways, test the same ways, respond to teaching techniques the same ways -- and give teachers the right, the responsibility, and the incentive to teach the student, not teach to a mandatory test.
What incentive are you thinking of? Probably money, but what makes the incentive. Simply increasing salary is good step, but maybe not complete.
The most concrete suggestion is the local control, but that local control does not include a way to be sure that students don't fall through the cracks.
Maybe it's a matter of freedom. More freedom to do whatever can be great, but it also leaves more students in the lurch if things aren't going well. Is there a way to allow freedom while still making sure that students are not continually shortchanged? Some students ARE perenially shafted - what room does the local control leave for overseeing and helping those students?
Some of the other suggestions also seem quite nebulous. It's great to put in bold that society should figure out a way to make every student happy, but "cure all poverty and put every child in a situation with one primary caregiver" is great, but hardly an actionable step the local school district is able to accomplish.
What does that mean? Penalizing parents who put their kids in child care? Make it a crime for both parents to work when their kids are younger than five?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:The most concrete suggestion is the local control, but that local control does not include a way to be sure that students don't fall through the cracks.
How does it not? If the local school board is in charge of my kids' education and I don't think they are doing their job I have power. I elect those people, I keep them in office - I can go to the board meetings and voice my opinion and at some level they have to listen to me because it's me and parents like me that determine whether or not they get and keep their jobs. If they are failing our kids we can get rid of them and get someone else who will (presumably) do a better job.
If there is no local control then my voice hasn't got near the power to influence or change - because the people in Montgomery and Washington don't care what parents in St Clair County think near as much as the St Clair County superintendent and school board members who depend on our votes care.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
What if the entire area is a mess?
I am thinking of the schools in Detroit. I really loved Detroit, but there's no question that the cycle of an poor, half-empty city with no tax base and a lousy education system wasn't going to fix itself.
Leaving it all to local control assumes that local control is the best solution in all cases. It isn't. It may be the best in some or even most cases, but not all, and I am not willing to write off those students as NIMBY, too bad for them.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: That's exactly what we end up doing - teaching them how to take standardized tests, instead of teaching them to understand the concepts that the tests are supposed to be evaluating.
quote: That's 53 days where students were either being tested, or reviewing tests. This does not include scattered quizzes throughout the year.
If I am understanding you correctly, your first statement is that it takes too long to teach a student how to take a test, but your second statement is that there is too much testing? My guess is that the problem you really want to address is that you believe there is too much testing, not too much time spent teaching a student how to take a test. They are two different issues. Again, most of those test days seem to be set by either your state or your local school district, not NCLB. Your district made the decision to have so many testing days, not NCLB.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I'm sure Detroit inner city is similar to Birmingham's. It IS a problem, no denying that - because you may be dealing with parents who just plain don't care what their kids are being taught and look at the education system as glorified babysitters.
That's where the state oversight I mentioned would come in. If the whole system is obviously failing the students and the local boards and parents won't do anything about it then the state does have an obligation to those kids to step in and make changes and try to address the problems. But it should be a last resort and it shouldn't be automatically assumed that every school needs strict oversight and every school is treated as if it is failing its students. Because quite a large number of school systems are doing their jobs, and I think would do better ones if they weren't so wrapped up in trying to turn the kids into performers for the tests.
I mean, just look at what Flying Cow is talking about, and my example where kids who obviously have mastered math basics are forced to go back and review them because that's what's on the test. Never mind that these kids really would benefit from learning algebra because that would help them accomplish academic goals in the long run, no let's drill them on fractions so we can meet our testing goals. After all, we know some kids won't be among the highest scorers, so these advanced math kids will help pull up the average. Do you know that I got phone calls and notes home from the school administration encouraging me to make sure my daughter attended school and was well rested and had a good breakfast on testing day? Not every parent got such reminders, I checked. No, those parents of honor students did.
Which makes you wonder, were they tacitly hoping some kids wouldn't come to school that day? And it makes me wonder, as the parent of an honor student, is she valued for who she is at that school or because she boosts their averages?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:you may be dealing with parents who just plain don't care what their kids are being taught and look at the education system as glorified babysitters.
Or, you may be dealing with parents who were failed by the school system already and so don't know how to change it for the better. I am not comfortable with blaming the parents in this situation. I'd rather assume that everyone is doing their best but sometimes an outside perspective is needed.
Okay, I REALLY don't like blaming the parents when they don't know how to demand help for their kids. That's why it's called a cycle of poverty.
How would you measure whether a school needs the state to step in? Does it take one bad teacher? A year of weird grades? What signs signal a need for the state? Does it have to be failure across the board or does the calvalry get called in to put a tiny fire instead of rebuild from ashes?
For the reminders, that's not NCLB - that's the school. Encouraging some students to come and hoping some students wouldn't - if that's what happened - came from that vaunted local decision-making. Most of the horror stories (although not all) in this thread are the results of local decision-making. That's not making a persuasive case.
Posted by DaisyMae (Member # 9722) on :
I don't really have anything new to add except to agree that I don't think it's an effective program. My best friend is a Special Ed. teacher. Her school offers better Special Ed. classes than others in her district so their school (this is elementary) has a higher percentage of Special Ed. kids than others in the district. Because those kids are not meeting grade level standards the school is actually losing money.
I'm sure it sounded like a good idea when they implemented it, but there are just too many specifics and individuals to be tailored to for a blanket program to work.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:For the reminders, that's not NCLB - that's the school. Encouraging some students to come and hoping some students wouldn't - if that's what happened - came from that vaunted local decision-making. Most of the horror stories (although not all) in this thread are the results of local decision-making. That's not making a persuasive case.
But the pressure to perform on tests would not be there without NCLB - that's the case I'm making. The school would not resort to this if there were not such an emphasis placed on the standardized test scores due to NCLB. Before NCLB the school didn't do these types of things, at least my kids' school didn't. I know that as a parent who's had kids in this same system for nine years and also because of what I've been told by friends who teach in the system.
All the horror stories you say are because of local control are due to local officials trying to find ways to accomodate NCLB requirements. So how are they not related to NCLB?
That's not to say there were no standardized tests at our school before NCLB or that they weren't important, there were and they did encourage kids to do well on them. but they didn't push them so hard and didn't spend so much class time preparing for them - they were part of the educational process not the supposed culmination of it. More important were the grades you achieved and mastering concepts that would be needed for you to be promoted to the next grade.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:My guess is that the problem you really want to address is that you believe there is too much testing, not too much time spent teaching a student how to take a test. They are two different issues.
Cause: There is too much emphasis placed on testing by NCLB.
Effects: 1. There is too much time spent on testing by districts trying to reflect this emphasis. 3. There is too much time spent on preparation for testing to ensure the school isn't sanctioned under NCLB. 4. There is too little learning going on, because of such an increased emphasis on testing.
quote:Again, most of those test days seem to be set by either your state or your local school district, not NCLB. Your district made the decision to have so many testing days, not NCLB.
Exactly. The states and school districts are desperately trying to find a way to satisfy the requirements laid forth in NCLB.
If you fail to meet your adequate yearly progress, based on test scores, you lose funding. If you fail to meet them repeatedly, there are increasing sanctions.
How do you meet your test score requirements? That's up to the school, of course.
But, because of the emphasis on the test, the all important test scores, the school has to keep their eye on the prize (standardized testing success) or be sanctioned.
All in all, truly failing school districts have improved under NCLB. Truly successful school districts have been stifled by NCLB. Middle of the road school districts are continually frustrated by NCLB.
It is a one-size-fits-all program. Just like everything else with that descriptor, one size never fits all.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:More important were the grades you achieved and mastering concepts that would be needed for you to be promoted to the next grade.
Do the tests NOT test the concepts that would be needed to be promoted to the next grade? Do the tests cover subjects that are unnecessary?
I think that grades are practically useless in elementary school. Grades seem like a poor measurement of what a child knows and a better measurement of how well they fit the profile of an ideal student. Of all the life skills we shouldn't be spending time on, shutting up, raising your hand, and working on concepts long after they've been mastered top the list. "A for Effort" is a social engineering tool, not an assessment.
I think I like the tests because at least it measures what kids know (in an occasionally poor way) rather than how well they play the school game.
Does anyone know about the tests themselves? Teaching the test is only bad if the concepts covered on the test are irrelevant. It was my understanding that the tests covered the concepts needed to pass to the next grade. Does someone have specific criticism of the test?
Thank you, Flying Cow. That has been my impression - that NCLB has succeeded greatly in its title activity - failing school districts have gotten better, and sometimes much better. If NCLB is to be abolished, I'd like to see how those school districts would still be addressed and helped. I'm not willing to write them off.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
kat, I would just say that to me, NCLB is a net negative system, so going back to the same old, same old would be an improvement in and of itself, and perhaps a better place to introduce new improvements. I gave some general thoughts on how to change it, but you didn't seem to consider them alternatives. How detailed do I need to be before you'd at least consider it an alternative? I say, cut the bureaucracy, and use more limited federal funding to equalize gross imbalances in school funding. If you want strings attached, I'm not against such things, but I'd like to know more about the strings involved. I don't have One True ideal in my head, I'm willing to compromise on many details.
--- Of course, while the education system in the US had issues before NCLB, it wasn't the cesspool, in toto, that a lot of NCLB supporters and other reformers would have you think. So I don't buy the fact that the NCLB was good because it was a change, and we needed a change.
kat, why do you think we should continue NCLB, as it is constituted now? I think it'd be instructive to those who would liek to change to know how supporters (even tentative ones like you) feel NCLB is getting things right, in their eyes.
Personally, I think kids who are disabled should be judged on how well they progress from the beginning to the end of the year, with an eye being kept on what should be a reasonable ceiling, as it were, for their academic pursuits, and that should be factored in. Which isn't to say you only teach them what you think they can handle, but rather keep in mind when determining how well they have done, what was to be expected.
-Bok
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Do the tests NOT test the concepts that would be needed to be promoted to the next grade? Do the tests cover subjects that are unnecessary?
At times, yes. As an example: Stem and Leaf plots. This is a favorite on standardized tests and in textbooks in middle school, but it is not a needed skill to move on to secondary school (nor is it on secondary tests). With all the other data analysis that is used more often (line plots, box and whisker plots, line graphs, etc), this is just another process for students to memorize that is only ever used on standardized tests.
quote:I think that grades are practically useless in elementary school.
Many elementary schools have done away with grades, especially in the early grades. For instance, they use terms like "Early Emerging Reader" in first grade, instead of giving a grade for reading. It doesn't help you gauge anything unless you know that the "Early Emerging Reader" is the lowest rung on the ladder and is about the same as saying "Child views book as food".
quote:Of all the life skills we shouldn't be spending time on, shutting up, raising your hand, and working on concepts long after they've been mastered top the list.
I don't know - having the ability to sit without interrupting, and raising your hand to be recognized can have a lot of value. It becomes apparent when you are with people who can't stop talking or moving for extended periods of time, and talk or shout during movies.
quote:I think I like the tests because at least it measures what kids know (in an occasionally poor way) rather than how well they play the school game.
But it's not. It's measuring how well they play the standardized test game. Plenty of my students understood the concepts, they just didn't understand the way the questions were constructed on the standardized test - or misunderstood the way the test wanted the answers presented.
quote:Does anyone know about the tests themselves?
For the GEPA (Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment in NJ), we weren't allowed to. Teachers were not allowed to view the test, or to look over students' shoulders while they took the test, or to ask students about the test afterwards. For a teacher to know what was on the test was verboten.
So, we all spent loads of time going over what we thought *might* be on the test, as there was no definitive list of the topics that would or would not be covered. It also hurt kids a lot that some topics on the test wouldn't be covered until the months after the test but before the end of the year.
quote:If NCLB is to be abolished, I'd like to see how those school districts would still be addressed and helped. I'm not willing to write them off.
Nor am I. But NCLB is almost like Harrison Bergeron. It's hurting everyone to level the playing field.
I am all in favor of identifying poorly performing schools and putting in standards and practices to help them improve. But what works in Mississippi doesn't work in Massachusetts.
We had a program run by a guy from Michigan, whose school district improved 17% on their standardized tests. Because of his success, he became a consultant, and our school district adopted his practices.
Unfortunately, he improved his schools from 40% to 57%... whereas our school was already at 78%. There's a BIG difference between improving from 40-57 than there is improving from 78 to 95. Totally different strategies are needed.
But administrators is stoopid sometimes.
More on the tests themselves later - have things to do for work.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I think whether or NCLB was good or not depends on where you are standing. Flying Cow seems to be saying it's been great for some, stifling for others, and an irritating wash for most.
I think metrics for performance is a good idea. I think giving more money to schools that are improving rather than schools that are doing worse rewards schools that improve rather than schools that don't. I like competition among schools and the power of the students to choose where they attend regardless of where they live.
I don't like going back to whatever was going before. Something had to happen, and more of the same simply reinforces and perpetuates the status quo. Under that status quo, a whole lot of students were being failed. That's not okay.
I like your idea for how disabled kids should be treated. A separate system used, but not drop out of the accountability altogether.
---
Flying Cow, thank you.
1. Make better tests. Have the tests match what the students really need to know. There was a great article in the Washington Post that decried the laundry list of math concepts third-graders were expected to know which resulted in lots of breadth but no depth. I'm fine with teaching to the test if the test actually covers what is necessary. So that's the first step.
quote:I am all in favor of identifying poorly performing schools and putting in standards and practices to help them improve.
How would you identify the poorly performing schools?
I still think shutting up and completing endless busy work is among the world's most useless life skills. I know it is necessary because of the sheer logistics of one teacher and 30 students, but I don't like it and I don't like grading on anything that doesn't measure mastery of the concept and the ability to execute it.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:Flying Cow seems to be saying it's been great for some, stifling for others, and an irritating wash for most.
Any structured system is an improvement over chaos. Schools that are failing need structure, just like students who are failing need structure.
While one student may be able to intuitively understand which factors of 24 they need, another may need to write out every factor pair to be sure they choose the right one. Is one method any more correct than the other? No - NCLB is making all schools/teachers list out all the factor pairs, rather than just those who would benefit from that method.
It's pretty much become a basic understanding of education: students learn in different ways. Some are linear, others are tactile, some are visual, and still others do best with the spoken word.
There is no one way that all students will learn, and there is no one way that all students can be equally evaluated. That's why we train teachers - to be able to find the ways that work for both learning and evaluation.
In a failing school, sometimes it takes a mandatory regimented structure to get the whole school back on track. In a mostly-succeeding school, that would only make the situation worse. Contrarily, the small tweaks a successful school can make to do better will not work in a failing school.
quote:How would you identify the poorly performing schools?
Observation by experienced teachers coming in from the outside. Which is how teachers should be evaluated, too, in my opinion. It should be random, unannounced, and impartial.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
kat if it's irritating, it's at least a minor negative, it just doesn't affect the end result. And how much is that "some"? Would you feel the same way if it was 5%? 15%? Neither of us know for sure, I think (do you know? I honestly haven't done that much research).
I guess I think at some point you have to say, "At this point, it's up to the parents AND citizens in the local school system to care. We've provided reasonable and equitable funding for obvious imbalances in budgets, but beyond that it's up to you." And in the case of urban areas, like Detroit, it's still better to let it be the state's responsibility, not the federal government's.
BTW, I also dispute that a "whole lot of students" were being failed... I also don't see how that has changed in any real systematic way with NCLB. I accept that there are sparkling successes, and resounding failures, but those are outliers (and existed in the old way too). how is the middle 80% doing? If no better, but NCLB requirements are causing grief to current and would-be teachers, thus creating a disincentive to enter the field, why not change back to the old system?
-Bok
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
Testing is less useful than grading. Period.
Why? Subjective or not, good teachers that care about their kids will grade based upon the factors they see. Did a child who is struggling really improve on the last test? Great! Bump up the grade a bit. Did a child who can do better slack off and only get by? Well fine, you don't get as good a grade because you can do better.
Whatever it is, a grade has the human touch in it. The human mind, however many its flaws, is better than a machines. It will be able to draw on all of the shortcomings of all of their students and, in the end, make a better decision about what is going on with each one and how well they are doing.
Testing does not prove that a person is intelligent or that they grasp the concepts. The NASD examinations for registered representatives DON'T weed out useless morons. If anything, they prevent people who would be a blessing to the industry from ever getting their foot in the door by creating a false requirement for entry.
This is mostly anecdotal, but I've seen so many incredibly intelligent people fail the Series 6 and 63 exams since I started working for a retirement services company that I've come to see the test and all testing in a cynical light. I've made friends with new people who are bright and interesting and who have really great skill-sets who have to find a new job because this stupid test kicks their butt.
There is no way that testing is better than grading in my mind. So long as the grader makes a concerted effort to be fair and balanced, then it just doesn't compare.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:1. Make better tests. Have the tests match what the students really need to know. There was a great article in the Washington Post that decried the laundry list of math concepts third-graders were expected to know which resulted in lots of breadth but no depth. I'm fine with teaching to the test if the test actually covers what is necessary. So that's the first step.
I agree and disagree, and I'm a worried now that testing puts in inappropriate priority on Math. I wonder if that's because math is the most clearly testable subject. If we exalt tests, then test only what is easily testable, then I think we may do a disservice to education.
I'm worried about tests that only test what is necessary and fail to test what is appropriate. I'm talking about engineers raping kids, ya'll. I'm talking about tests which Ken Lay would have failed. We can talk all we want about how to raise math scores, but if that's where our priorities are in our school system, I think we have lost our way.
A major problem with tying everything to a the welfare of a scantron is that this effort distracts from the teacher's main duty to teach our children the responsibilities of being a human.
We want to teach marketable skills to students so that poor districts produce employable workers, not criminals. I'd rather teach character so that all districts teach character such that the students wouldn't be criminals, even if they were poor.
(keeps his mouth shut about all these white people, drunk on science and accountability, and missing the point the whole point.)
[ December 07, 2006, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Valentine014 (Member # 5981) on :
I don't think you'll find many teachers in favor of this program (my father included). I've heard too many negative things about it. Many teachers on Hatrack have expressed their frustration. Basically, it sounds great on paper but isn't practical.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
Actually, Valentine, I think it works fine if you willing to sell out the dignity of education for better math skills. I'm not saying that the failing schools were doing well at teaching the higher virtues before NCLB, I am saying that this lexicon of tests, efficiency, and accountability shifts the dialogue away from schools even trying.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
"What incentive are you thinking of? Probably money, but what makes the incentive. Simply increasing salary is good step, but maybe not complete."
Well, no, actually I wasn;t thinking of money.If I was, I would have said so. The incentive I was thinking about has actually been mentioned by others. Give teachers back the time to actually teach. Concepts, ideas, basic skills. So much of their precious time is spent on things other than that. The amount of administrative paperwork and numbers totting is incredible -- and even more so when you consider how much administration there already is. Paper seems to breed paper rather indiscriminantly.
"The most concrete suggestion is the local control, but that local control does not include a way to be sure that students don't fall through the cracks."
When we give parents, caregivers, teachers back the opportunity to act as teams, as partners, rather than to react to blanket rules and tests, then I think we'll see some changes. Teachers simply can't afford to work side-by-side with parents or community members at this point. Too much riding on the stakes.
"Maybe it's a matter of freedom. More freedom to do whatever can be great, but it also leaves more students in the lurch if things aren't going well. Is there a way to allow freedom while still making sure that students are not continually shortchanged? Some students ARE perenially shafted - what room does the local control leave for overseeing and helping those students?"
Freedom includes the right to be responsible and the right to both succeed and fail. We simply have to stop insisting that everyone meet the same standards of mediocrity. Those famous bell-curves? They aren't allowed to exist in NCLB. Everyone has to be the same. And that will never happen. I personally believe that by empowering individuals and communities to take charge, we'll see less of those "perennially shafted" students.
"Some of the other suggestions also seem quite nebulous. It's great to put in bold that society should figure out a way to make every student happy, but "cure all poverty and put every child in a situation with one primary caregiver" is great, but hardly an actionable step the local school district is able to accomplish."
First, I didn't put in bold that society needs to make every student happy. I put in bold that society needs to honor, encourage, support children being raised and nurtured by one primary caregiver -- particularly in the early years. I also said very clearly it didn't matter to me who the primary caregiver was -- I am interested in the infant/young child experiencing the stability of a primary, known caregiver -- which helps the child to build tose beginning neural networks. Through that safe, healthy relationship. There's sound neurological/developmental reasons behind that.
Second, of course the local school district can't fix that. Nowhere did I say that they should. That's why I talked about and continued to emphasizr throughout my ramblings the "community-based" actions I see needing to happen in order to affect the sort of change people seem to want to see in the schools.
"What does that mean? Penalizing parents who put their kids in child care? Make it a crime for both parents to work when their kids are younger than five?"
I don't know, I could be wrong, but it seems like you are deliberately trying to pick a fight. I never said, nor implied, those things, either. When I say I want a society that honors the needs of young children, that's what I mean. If I wanted parents punished for some nebulous thing, I'd say that.
I think as a society we are expecting schools to do far more than "educate", and that as a society we are mostly not set up to encourage, support, nurture, honor the rearing of our young -- by anyone.
Stay-at-home parents feel dishonored and that their personal integrity is in doubt because they have chosen to focus on the important task of rearing the next generation. The economics of our society makes it damn near impossible for folks to get by on one income -- especialy if that income does not come with medical and dental benefits for the whole family. Child care workers are among the lowest paid in our nation. The field has one of the highest turn-over rates, and the lowest education and training requirements. And yet, over half our children under 5 are left in out-of-home care. In my state, it's over 60%. Most parents are overworked and dog-tired simply trying to make ends meet (whether that's for basics or extras, doesn't matter) and so the litle childlets don't get as much as they need during the limited time they are with their parents, either. They get fast-food, TVs,videos, etc. Not hands-on, face-to-face, interaction time. Do I say this to "blame" the parent? Hell, no. Our society is set up to support a certain kind of economy -- which in no way supports the rearing and nurturing of young children.
And then we wonder why little Johnny or Sue enter kindergarten without the basic social skills to be able to learn what the teacher has to teach, never mind the other needed development that sets the stage for later cognitive growth.
For an example of how kids learn from play, check out this website:
NCLB makes me want to keep my children out of the public school system. I want them to get a real education, not just a 12 year course on test taking strategies. With NCLB public schools no longer appear capable of giving children the former.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
What I see every day of the 180 days I teach since NCLB is this:
Children do not get a chance to know the "basics," because everyone is so worried about the test they move too quickly through the curriculum because they have to "get through" the standards.
I have kids in fifth grade, smart kids, who, when asked to round to the nearest ten ask, "Which ten?"
It is easy for me to teach the process of multiplication or addition. It takes mroe time to make sure they understand multiplication.
My problem is not with the standards, or even the test. My problem is what we are doing with them.
A school which does not meet AYP for three or four years in a row is labelled a school district in need of improvement, and its funding for extra services are taken away. In a severe case, the state is supposed to come in and take over the school, replace the administration, and replace the teachers.
With whom?
We are facing a teacher shortage. So far, it is only apparent in the inner city schools, and at higher levels in math and science, but it is coming fast. Do you teach? Do you have kids in school? How many teachers retired last year? The baby boomers are moving out.
A fellow teacher said something that I took to heart. He is British, and said that until we as a country start making the children responsible for their own learning, we are screwed. Teachers jump through hoops. Parents jump through hoops. Administrators jum p through hoops and build hoops for their teachers to jump through.
What I see now is that if you are a student, and you fail, you get lots of extra stuff.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:We are facing a teacher shortage. So far, it is only apparent in the inner city schools, and at higher levels in math and science, but it is coming fast.
Just to lend some weight to what Elizabeth is saying, I have a book in front of me called Teachers Have It Easy by Daniel Moulthrop, Ninive Clements Calegari and Dave Eggers. Here's a quote from it:
quote:A recent study by University of Pennsylvania sociology professor Richard Ingersoll found that 33 percent of teachers leave within the first three years of beginning their careers, and 46 percent leave within the first five. (2)
Posted by Nathan2006 (Member # 9387) on :
My mom teaches in drop-out prevention, and she doesn't like NCLB. It's a nice thought, but (And I am being presumpteous enough to both speak for her, and use the word 'presumpteous' while spelling it incorrectly) it's idealistic.
My mom homeschooled us until my dad went blind and she had to start working (My dad teaches me now), and she really appreciates the fact that different children learn at different rates. My brother couldn't read past a 1st grade level until his was 10, and now he has tested in the 99th percentile in the TABE tests. I, on the other hand, have always been a good reader (A good speller too, until I topped off at a 12.3 grade level according to the TABE).
Anyway, children learn at different levels, at different speeds. Some really are having trouble, and some just aren't applying themselves.
But now, because of NCLB, my mom works frantically trying to get credits for all of these kids, some of which do *not* do the work necessary to earn the credit. But, there's a constant 'greater good' attitude. Pretty much, if the kids do not get their credits, the school does not get money, and the drop-out prevention program is shut down, thus, future kids, who might actually do the work for their credits would not be able to benefit from the program.
I'm not exactly clear of the mechanics, but this problem is directly tied in with NCLB. Bad schools get worse, and better schools can get better because of the money that they clearly do *not* need.
I mean, I understand that it is an unfair punishment to reward schools for doing a bad job of teaching, thus rewarding kids who may not be applying themselves, or kids who simply are over their head because they couldn't be left behind in middle school.
But, NCLB isn't working either.
I wish that there would be different highschools for visual, audio, and kinsthetic learners, but this is idealistic. Who has the money?
Posted by pH (Member # 1350) on :
quote:It doesn't help you gauge anything unless you know that the "Early Emerging Reader" is the lowest rung on the ladder and is about the same as saying "Child views book as food".
-pH
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"I wish that there would be different highschools for visual, audio, and kinsthetic learners, but this is idealistic. Who has the money?"
There are tech schools, but they tend to be viewed as a lesser option.
As much as I do not like the tracking approach as a general philosphy, I see the sense of it as I get older and less idealistic. (sad, but true)
In many countries, kids have to pass into an academic track, or are funneled elsewhere. Twenty years ago, this idea horrified me. After working with kids for so long, I realize how much more successful they would be if they only had other options to pursue.
NCLB says everyone can learn. It also assumes that everyone wants to learn a specific set of skills, and that is just not true.
Posted by Mathematician (Member # 9586) on :
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: [QUOTE]I agree and disagree, and I'm a worried now that testing puts in inappropriate priority on Math.
The only "inappropriate priority" on math is not having enough of it. I say teach ONLY math. Once students get math down, they can work on less neccesary skills, like social interaction and communicating coherently.
Of course, I could be biased (Math > reality !) :)
Posted by Eisenoxyde (Member # 7289) on :
Whenever I hear people talking about this, I try to bite my tounge. When I started kindergarten, my teacher immediately started teaching us how to read. Within a month I was reading indepenently on my own. My teacher recognized this and kept pushing me to do more.
Early in 1st grade, my family moved to a different school district. I was placed in the highest reading group and quickly discovered that the class was going over stuff that I had learned the year before. I complained about this to my mom and she complained about it to the school, but it fell on deaf ears as they were afraid I wouldn't get along socially with the second graders.
The next year I was placed in a 1st/2nd grade combination class, for the slower learners. My mom fought as hard as she could to get me into the normal class without any luck. I spent the whole year putting very little effort into school and was getting extremely bored.
In 3rd grade things started to get worse. My brother and I were responsible for our city banning all firecrackers because we were lighting them off on the way to/from school and storing them at school to prevent our parents from finding them. This was also the first time I started having contempt for my teachers. The 2 3rd grade classes at my school split up for math with one for the slower learners. I was placed in the easier class and never had any problems with the math given to me and was more than bored with it. I was hurt and a little angry when I overheard the 3rd grade teachers talking about me one day, with one saying that while I was in the easy math class and didn't have any problems with the material, she was afraid I might struggle in the harder one!!!!
Finally in 4th grade I had enough. I had seen a flyer about a g/t program that the county offerend and I asked my mom to apply for me to get into it. To be accepted, I had to take a battery of tests. My scores ranged from the 96th - 99th percentile and I was immediately moved to a different school, to be in the g/t program full time. Suddenly I started enjoying school for the first time since my family moved.
Things went well until I moved to junior high and there wasn't a g/t program anymore. At this point I was getting very tired of school. Almost all my teachers were incompetent in junior high, with the exception of 2. My math teacher couldn't even do basic math - I had a 86% in the class and turned in extra credit and somehow my grade dropped to an 83%. It wasn't until I complained and *proved* her wrong that she gave me the correct grade of 92%.
Things finally came to a head in 9th grade where I simply stopped caring about any class other than math. Towards the beginning of the year I begged my parents to let me get a GED and move on to college early. Unfortunately the law said I needed to be 16 before I could take it, so I gave up on school and started doing my own independent study to learn about stuff I found interesting. I finished the year with at 1.5 GPA and it took my parents a lot of effort to convince me to put for at least a little effort to get decent grades so I could get accepted into good universities.
I still have a bitter hatred of public schools and probably always will. I wish my crappy teachers would go DIAF. I will never let my future children ever set foot in one.
One last thing - my older brother and younger sister both went to the same kindergarten class and could both read independently in less than a semester while my 3 youngest siblings went to my new elementary school and none of them could read independently before 3rd grade. Some schools deserve to be shut down or severely reorganized.
(Edited to fix typos.)
Posted by Eisenoxyde (Member # 7289) on :
FlyingCow - I don't mean to dispute your numbers but I am curious about a couple things.
5 days of state testing 6 days of "benchmark" testing designed to improve scores 6 days going over the benchmark assessments 8 days of "mandatory tasks" designed like state testing questions 8 days going over the mandatory tasks 20 days (estimate) of graded tests (one every other week, which were supposed to be written in the style of the standardized tests) 10 days (estimate) going over said tests (half a period for each)
That's 53 days where students...
5+6+6+8+8+20+10*.5=58 days
Shouldn't the "35 days devoted to standardized testing and test preparation" be included in the above figure?
---
Also for others complaining that teachers are taking time out of teaching algebra to review fractions - I volunteer at my local high school tutoring math and science. A large portion of the kids I help with algebra struggle with fractions. Part of why they're having problems with algebra is because they still don't fully understand the basics.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
St. Louis is another big city with major problems, going possibly to state-take-over. The internal politics is quite disgusting. (One ex-board member was arrested for public urination. She was trying to filibuster some move on the boards behalf, and had to go. Her staff put up some coats to cover her as she watered a waste can. Her insane ramblings later got her expelled from the board, and sent to an institution.)
I wonder if going small may be a solution. Limit the size of a school board to something that is small enough to have local control. Instead of these uber-districts with these uber-schools, we limit a district to 10,000 students or something.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Couple things.
quote:20 days (estimate) of graded tests (one every other week, which were supposed to be written in the style of the standardized tests) 10 days (estimate) going over said tests (half a period for each)
20 days of tests. Half a day each going over them, for a total of 10 days. You took that 10 days and cut it in half again.
So, 63 days, not 58.
quote:Shouldn't the "35 days devoted to standardized testing and test preparation" be included in the above figure?
It was - though I seem to have mistyped. It's 33 days. (The days of standardized tests, benchmark tests, and mandatory tasks... along with review). All I did was take out the teacher-designed tests and review (30 days).
Again, though, this was one specific school district. Granted, it was a highly functioning suburban school district in NJ that averaged in the high 70th percentile on standardized tests... but it was considered a district "at risk" because its high number of special education students weren't performing at the same rate as the non-classified students.
So, to raise test scores across the board, they instituted this absurd "test them to death" policy that worked so well in... a Michigan school district that had a sub-50 percentile standardized test rate. Posted by Eisenoxyde (Member # 7289) on :
Ok, I see what you're saying now.
The reason why I was asking if the 35 (33) days was included because you accidently double counted them.
63/182=0.3462=34.62% If you raise the amount to 40%, that would include an additional 10 days of misc. stuff - leaving 109 days (60%) for regular instruction, not 36 days (20%).
Posted by BaoQingTian (Member # 8775) on :
Irami-
Just an offhand observation, but after reading your comments in several education threads over a period of time, I think you view education as some people view religion. You are as more scandalized that Ken Lay was educated than you are that he is Christian. No matter how good your education system, no matter how much emphasis you place on humanities, you'll still get people that make poor moral choices, just like with any religion.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:If you raise the amount to 40%, that would include an additional 10 days of misc. stuff - leaving 109 days (60%) for regular instruction, not 36 days (20%).
Please note that the context of the 40% number is this:
quote:Add in the quizzes, assemblies, field trips, presentations, fire drills, etc, and you're talking 40% or more of the year with no new subject matter being presented.
Actually, if you add in all of those extraneous factors, you're probably dealing with 50% of the year or so that is not spent on instructin.
And the 20% number was the percent of the year *given back* to the teacher - 33 days (originally mistyped as 35) out of 182 is 18% of the year. That's 18% of the year that once was testing/review, and can now be education.
I'll quote what I said again for you:
quote:Take out the 35 [edit: should be 33] days devoted to standardized testing and test preparation, and you give 20% of the year back to the teacher - or one day in every five, one day a week.
Instead of just trying to crunch numbers, please try to understand the context in which they are used.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Also for others complaining that teachers are taking time out of teaching algebra to review fractions - I volunteer at my local high school tutoring math and science. A large portion of the kids I help with algebra struggle with fractions. Part of why they're having problems with algebra is because they still don't fully understand the basics.
If you are tutoring them, then by definition they are struggling. When I brought this up, I was talking about an ADVANCED mathematics class - not everyone was in this class only those students who exhibited command of the basics you mention. The whole point is these students don't need to review fractions, they already mastered fractions or they wouldn't be in the class. And yet, the teacher was forced by policy to review them because of an upcoming standardized test. Now, I would be fine with spending a class period or two on reviewing concepts, review is never a bad thing - but these kids have spent more than a week so far without cracking their algebra books while the teacher reviews things they already know. They've lost a week of instruction and I know this for a fact because my daughter's algebra textbook is here in my library beside me - the teacher said don't bother bringing it back until the standardized testing is over. And they won't be doing it until next week. So in all, two weeks of instruction, at the minimum, lost and wasted on students that didnt' even need it.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
quote:The whole point is these students don't need to review fractions, they already mastered fractions or they wouldn't be in the class.
In my experience, this isn't the case. The fastest way to drop a high honors algebra class's test average from 90 to 80 (or below) is to put in all fractional coefficients and constants.
The problem is that, quite often, once students leave seventh grade they don't see a lot of fractions anymore. Many high school math teachers don't want to bother with fractions, so they make the number crunching easy - instead focusing on the algebraic concepts at play.
Not saying that is the case with your daughter's particular class or particular teacher, just what I've seen covering for high school math teachers and teaching honors courses myself.
Also, to address another point:
quote:not everyone was in this class only those students who exhibited command of the basics you mention.
I also didn't find this to be the case, but I think (hope) northern NJ is a unique situation. While merit is the stated qualifier to put a student in honors, it was often overruled.
For instance, if a parent wants her dear Timmy in honors, even though Timmy gets C's in regular math, she can make enough noise to get him there - where he will likely earn D's. Also, because honors classes are not often very diverse (due to the achievement gap between white and nonwhite students), efforts were made to include minority students whose scores didn't actually qualify them.
So, in any given honors class, you had plenty of students who weren't quite up to the calibre of the rest of the class... which unfortunately slowed down how quickly material could be covered.
I do hope that is unique to my area of the country, but I fear it is not.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
You may be right Flying Cow, but I still think spending more than two weeks on things these kids already mastered is crazy. For one thing, this is 8th grade, they're only one grade removed from studying fractions anyway, and for another - no one is put in there to diversify the class, because, frankly, it isn't possible. There is no one you can move into the class to make it less than 98% white because the district is 98% white as it is.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
LOL.
Yeah, well, that will certainly affect your diversity.
If you look, though, the sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade textbooks are all variations on the same theme. Three years of repetition, and many students still don't master the concepts.
When I taught 8th grade, I spent a single day on basic standardized test review with my Honors Algebra kids (that was before I moved to the insane school with ridiculous standardized test policies). They did great. I spent weeks with standard level kids - they didn't do so great.
Then again, a lot of the reason those 8th graders were picked for algebra was based on their 7th grade standardized test scores... so these were kids who already proved they test well.
Posted by Eisenoxyde (Member # 7289) on :
FlyingCow, I'm just trying to make sense of your post. From the original post it sounded to me that you were saying that you could only teach new material 20% of the time with the rest being devoted to standardized testing and misc stuff, which didn't make any sense to me. I never doubted what you said was true, I was trying to crunch the numbers and hopefully have you point out where I was wrong. Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Points of my post:
- Tests of some sort (and pre/post review) took up 30% of the year. 18-20% of the year (most of that 30%) was spent on standardized testing. - Quizzes and days spent out of the classroom can be 10-20% of the year on top of that. - Adding all of that together, it ends up with actual instruction taking place only half of the days of the year. - Take out standardized testing, and you regain the 20% of the year lost - getting one day back out of every week, on average. - So, instead of being able to teach content 5 out of every 10 days, it would become 7 out of every 10 days without any form of standardized testing or testing review.
That more clear?
Posted by Eisenoxyde (Member # 7289) on :
Yeah, that's a lot clearer now. Thank you.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Cool. Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
That only becomes a problem if the the tests are not germane to the curriculum.
I don't mind testing, in reasonble amounts. I mind the content of the test.
quote:You are as more scandalized that Ken Lay was educated than you are that he is Christian. You are as more scandalized that Ken Lay was educated than you are that he is Christian. No matter how good your education system, no matter how much emphasis you place on humanities, you'll still get people that make poor moral choices, just like with any religion. No matter how good your education system, no matter how much emphasis you place on humanities, you'll still get people that make poor moral choices, just like with any religion.
At least religion baldly addresses the issue. Public education, in emphasizing math, worldly science, and job skills, all neatly testable areas, ignores these issues making itself irrelevant to people who aren't driven by math, science, and money.
quote: You are as more scandalized that Ken Lay was educated than you are that he is Christian. No matter how good your education system, no matter how much emphasis you place on humanities, you'll still get people that make poor moral choices, just like with any religion.
What bothers me is the degree to which poor moral choices are accepted and propagated by the absence of the humanities and the substitution of "behavioral science" in their stead.
[ December 08, 2006, 04:40 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
I mind overtesting.
In that year with all that madness, there was a two week period where the students did nothing but have tests or go over tests. None of these counted toward their grade or were part of the current curriculum - they were just standardized tests that were meant to cover a general range of grade-level topics.
At the end of it, they were exhausted, frustrated, and confused about the point of it all. I didn't have the heart to give them the graded test I had planned for the following week, so I postponed it - which ended up giving them one less grade for the marking period.
Even if the tests are based on subject matter, you can't just test kids all the live long day. Testing is meant to periodically evaluate learning - not to be the focus of the year.
And for the special education students, who received 50% more time than everyone else, it was almost unbearable.
Pause for two unrelated anecdotes regarding special education students and standardized testing:
- One specific student had a problem interpreting information when presented in two dimensions. I knew that he had difficulty understanding what I wrote on the board and what was written on tests. However, when something was explained to him out loud, he understood very readily.
Often I would quiz him verbally after a test or quiz to gauge his understanding instead of relying on the test paper alone. During tests (and especially standardized tests) he had a support teacher with him to read aloud any sections that confused him. Even so, standardized tests frustrated him immensely, and he always scored very poorly - even though he understood the concepts.
- Another student was an algebra-machine. The other kids in the class looked up to him for always just "getting it" and asked him for help constantly. They didn't know he was classified because of severe anxiety problems and would never have believed that the A+ student scored consistently in the 40th percentile on standardized math tests - simply because he froze up during the examination periods.
Posted by Shanna (Member # 7900) on :
If there was ever a sentence that summed up the problem for me, this is it:
quote:Testing is meant to periodically evaluate learning - not to be the focus of the year.
Exactly, FlyingCow!
When an evaluation tool supercedes the teaching of the material and the learning that it is meant to evaluate, we have a problem.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
One thing I am doing more regularly this year is PRE-testing.
Sadly, not many kids this year are passing through the pre-tests, but there are some. What I like about the pretesting plan is that I can see the progress a student made in the course of the unit. We break down the tests by skill, and it is really interesting to see, even though I am NOT a number-cruncher by nature.
What I have noticed is that the kids can learn the algorithms just fine. But if I scratch the surface, I can quickly discover a horrid pit of doom when it comes to basic number sense. They can be taught to multiply, but do not understand what they are doing. So, they leave fourth grade and fifth grade, where they can get away woth this, and land in sixth grade and beyond and are clueless, because it has all been going too fast.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Yep. They can bash numbers together, a lot of the time, but have no idea why they're doing it, or when they should do it.
I've seen plenty of students who could add, multiply and divide fractions... but couldn't compare them to know which is bigger, or roughly estimate the amount of a whole they are (and I'm talking about bigger or smaller than a half, bigger or smaller than a quarter, etc).
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: If you fail to meet your adequate yearly progress, based on test scores, you lose funding. If you fail to meet them repeatedly, there are increasing sanctions
See this is exactly the kind of myth I am talking about. NCLB is blamed for everything and so many things are said about that are not true. Ed.gov "NCLB does not label any school as“failing.” In fact,states are responsible for identifying schools as “in need of improvement”if they do not reach the state-defined standards for two consecutive years. And far from losing federal funds, schools in need of improvement actually qualify for additional support to help them get back ontrack. Federal funds have steadily increased to support schools in need of improvement. These schools have increased funds targeted for professional development,and are specifically required to work with parents, school staff,district and outside experts to develop an improvement plan." "States and local school districts are now receiving more federal funds than ever before for programs under No Child Left Behind: $24.3 billion, most of which will be used during the 2004–05 school year." Schools funding increase and if you do not meet the requirements than you qualify for more money and assistance. As far as 'punishment' goes.... "What happens when a school does not make adequate yearly progress (AYP)?" "Second Year: A Title I school that has not made AYP, as defined by the state, for two consecutive school years will be identified by the district as needing improvement before the beginning of the next school year. School officials will develop a two-year plan to turn around the school. The district will ensure that the school receives needed technical assistance as it develops and implements its improvement plan. Students must be offered the option of transferring to another public school in the district—which may include a public charter school—that has not been identified as needing school improvement. Third Year: If the school does not make AYP for three years, the school remains in school-improvement status, and the district must continue to offer public school choice to all students. In addition, students from low-income families are eligible to receive supplemental educational services, such as tutoring or remedial classes, froma provider who is approved by the state and selected by parents. Fourth Year:If the school does not make AYP for four years, the district must implement certain corrective actions to improve the school, such as replacing certain staff or fully implementing a new curriculum, while continuing to offer public schoolchoice for all, as well as supplemental educational services for low-income students. Fifth Year: If the school does not make AYP for a fifth year, the district must initiate plans for restructuring the school. This may include reopening the school as a charter school, replacing all or most of the school staff, or turning over school operations either to the state or to a private company with a demonstrated record of effectiveness."
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Second Year: Develop a two year plan. Increase training for teachers, bring in outside consultants, find ways to improve test scores - this is where you get crazy ideas like focusing more on test strategies instead of focusing on content. This all costs money. The "district" will ensure the school receives assistance... but the district gets money from tax dollars, not the government.
So, from a budget that was voted upon and passed, you have to rechannel funding away from programs it was slotted for. What happens to those other programs? The lose funding.
Often this results in woodshops, mechanics shops, home economics, music, art, and gym to be cut back. Why? Because they are expensive, and not tested.
Third Year - School choice. The district has to pay for bussing to the other schools, should a child want to go to a different school. Moreover, that school becomes more crowded and has lower performing students. Class sizes go up, test scores go down. Low-income families get tutoring and remediated classes - which requires more teachers to be hired.
Fourth Year - This is actually the most productive for truly failing schools. Total system reform. However, if your special education students can't make the grade for four years, then a school performing at 85% can have its staff replaced and new curriculum put into place. It's called throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Fifth Year - More restructuring, more teachers, more money. And it could happen if only one segment of your school population (for instance, special education students) is having trouble performing on standardized tests.
This has led to schools going out of their way NOT to offer special education services to failing students who need them, because to add that student would be to drop SpEd test scores immediately.
Yeah, great program.
And the AYP is all based on test scores, which are english/math only. Wonderful program.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
"This all costs money. The "district" will ensure the school receives assistance... but the district gets money from tax dollars, not the government." All money the government and your school district has comes from taxes. In FY2004 NCLB has given schools $24 billion dollars to pay for added costs. So the district does get money from the federal government.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
$24 billion nationwide. With 50 states, that's $480 million per state.
There are 21 counties in NJ. So, that's about $23 million per county.
There are 22 districts in Essex County, and 11 charter schools (lets list those as 1 county). Dividing $23 million by 23 gives you about $1 million per district.
Taking Montclair for an example (with it's annual budget of $92 million plus). That's an increase of just about 1%. There are 11 schools in Montclair, giving each school about $91,000 dollars.
Taking the average cost per pupil of $10,000 - that's an extra 9 kids that can be taught per school. Or, taking the starting first-year teacher salary average in Essex County of $40k plus benefits on top of that, you're talking maybe 2 new, inexperienced teachers.
Throw in the need for computers/technology, training, smaller teacher to student ratios, more special education support, increased free/reduced lunch programs, new curriculum development, after school tutoring, etc, etc...
This is where the term "underfunded mandate" comes from. It's like giving someone a quarter and telling them to go get a burger.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Except that not every school needs or should get the same amount of money so your breakdown is flawed from the start, and your entire schools budget is not funded from NCLB, this is additional money to the $92 million you are already receiving, not replacing it
[ December 11, 2006, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: DarkKnight ]
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
So, when schools that have greater need get a greater share, schools with lesser need (Montclair) get a lesser share.
Montclair then gets even less money to meet the standards set by NCLB. And they've missed their AYP in four areas for three straight years already - and likely will miss their fourth this year.
With very little federal funding.
So, it falls upon the district to find the money somewhere for all manner of reform - even though the school averages in the 80th percentile on its tests.
Again, one size fits all does not work.
The failing school in Mississippi gets a huge infusion of funds and governmental support, boosting its infrastructure, adding teachers, adding technology, increasing learning, and making night-and-day changes. Their scores may go from the 20th to the 60th percentile. NCLB is a resounding success! Pats on the back all around!
The successful school in NJ that is falling behind in a few key areas gets incredibly little from the federal government, but must still add teachers, infrastructure, technology, etc. To do this, they cut programs like wood and mechanics shop, art programs, and music programs. They go to the voters with an increased budget, and it gets shot down, forcing teacher benefits to be affected as they scramble for money. Huge focus is placed on improving those few areas, but test scores slip from 80th to 78th percentile. NCLB is a terrible failure! Something must be done!
It's a flawed program. For some schools it's great. For others, it's awful. One size doesn't fit all.
For every success story, there's a horror story. And six years later, there's no significant improvement overall. If anything, we're drifting towards the middle - the low points are coming up as the high points fall down.
You even get idiotic proclamations like my sister's district in Maryland made saying "by 2012, 100% of students will score in the 80th percentile or better!" If 100% are in the top 20%, something is wrong with your math.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
"So, when schools that have greater need get a greater share, schools with lesser need (Montclair) get a lesser share." Doesn't that make sense? How else would you do it? Schools with a lesser need get more?
From the Montclair website Montclair "We are most proud of our efforts on the State tests, which were administered last spring. As you may have read in the paper, all of our schools, with the exception of Mt. Hebron and Montclair High School, made the Adequately Yearly Progress benchmarks as established by No Child Left Behind. Mt. Hebron missed the cut by one indicator; while Montclair High School missed it by two indicators out of a possible forty. Glenfield, Hillside and Rand Schools’ achievement results were notable enough that they were not cited this year as needing improvement. Bradford, Edgemont, Northeast, and Watchung continued their strong performance. The annual student performance report, which provides a comprehensive review of the data, will be available to the public later this fall." Things do not sound that dire to me, sounds like Montclair is improving as it should be? "Again, one size fits all does not work." I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean since it is up to the state to first set standards and then each district develops the plans on how to improve their own test scores and other areas. Because NCLB is not perfect you want to completely destroy it? "For every success story, there's a horror story. And six years later, there's no significant improvement overall. If anything, we're drifting towards the middle - the low points are coming up as the high points fall down." Really? Do you have the proof of this?
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Well, it seems their unwritten policy of no longer classifying black males for special education has worked. I haven't worked there in two years, but the way of improving scores for special education (in Glenfield and MHS) was to exclude students who already were failing from the special education programs, especially black male students. When the students who would bring down certain indicators were left in the general population, their low numbers were balanced out.
Houston showed the world how to get your numbers up. It's just a matter of following their example.
quote:Because NCLB is not perfect you want to completely destroy it?
Not at all. As I've said, it works great in some areas. But not in others. Stop using it in the areas where it's not working.
(I noticed, btw, that you backed off of the "everyone gets plenty of money from the federal government" argument. Do you know what was cut at Montclair over the last five years to pay for all the changes?)
There are many school districts who have chosen to forego federal funding to exclude themselves from the program. Unfortunately, most schools do not have budget flexibility to afford this luxury.
quote:Really? Do you have the proof of this?
All my evidence is from my experience on the ground and seeing things first hand. Gifted and talented program funding being cut to fund remediation, increased standardized test prep at the expense of curriculum enrichment, etc.
All so that some standardized test averge increases - even if those students who got a proficient score in math can't figure out change of a twenty without a calculator.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
"I noticed, btw, that you backed off of the "everyone gets plenty of money from the federal government" argument. Do you know what was cut at Montclair over the last five years to pay for all the changes?" I wasn't aware that I had to reiterate every arguement in every post. In any case, I would not, and did not, say the everyone gets plenty of money from the federal government for two reasons. One, schools will never have enough money. You could triple the spending for a district and it will still need more money. Two, the district does not say how much money it gets from the federal government so there is no way to say how much they get, or more importantly, if they are spending it wisely. "Well, it seems their unwritten policy of no longer classifying black males for special education has worked" Shouldn't that be stopped? Shouldn't we be happy that they have dropped the racist attitude of male blacks can't learn? Or did I miss something? "I haven't worked there in two years, but the way of improving scores for special education (in Glenfield and MHS) was to exclude students who already were failing from the special education programs, especially black male students. When the students who would bring down certain indicators were left in the general population, their low numbers were balanced out." Again, shouldn't we be happy that now those students are no longer neglected and forgotten? Now they are picked up by NCLB instead of simply dismissed from special education programs. I could be misunderstanding what you are saying though. "All my evidence is from my experience on the ground and seeing things first hand. Gifted and talented program funding being cut to fund remediation, increased standardized test prep at the expense of curriculum enrichment, etc." Quick Facts These Quick Facts seem to say otherwise? "All so that some standardized test averge increases - even if those students who got a proficient score in math can't figure out change of a twenty without a calculator." How is that a fault of NCLB? Using calculators is allowed, or not allowed, by the state or local districts, not NCLB. Remember that your state creates your tests, not NCLB.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
I'm at work, so I must be brief. I'll try to write more at home. A couple of points.
quote: wasn't aware that I had to reiterate every arguement in every post.
- I open with a statement that schools lose money when they fall behind on AYP. - You follow saying that is a myth, and they actually get more money than. - I say that the increased money doesn't come close to covering what is needed to meet guidelines. - You say that money has been increased by $24 billion. - I say that is a pittance per school on average, especially with increased requirements. - You say that different schools get differing amount based on need. - I say that the schools that get less based on need still have to cover costs, and have to pull from other areas to cover new guidelines. The money they get doesn't cover the needed increases in spending... thus, they are getting less than they are asked to spend. Hence, underfunded mandate. - You stop talking about it.
quote:Shouldn't that be stopped? Shouldn't we be happy that they have dropped the racist attitude of male blacks can't learn? Or did I miss something?
Maybe I wasn't clear. It's not that they're looking for parity - they were actually not allowing *any* black male students to be classified at all, for anything. Whether they exhibited obvious indicators for dyslexia, fine motor difficulties, or otherwise.
As long as low functioning Special Ed qualifying students were in the general population, they could be balanced by others. Put them in a smaller data set, special education students, and they pulled down the average. Solution? Don't let them into the smaller data set.
Actually, our success stories couldn't drop their classification because their high scores would be lost, and the students who most needed help couldn't be classified because their low scores would be added. All newly classified students dropped the test average, so they severely limited the students who could receive help.
That's not at all what we want to be doing. We should be offering more help to those who need it, not denying them the help they need.
quote:These Quick Facts seem to say otherwise?
You have to understand that Montclair is a PR school, first and foremost. From the outside, they put a shine on everything. We fired our principal? No, she moved to an administrative position in Trenton. We fired our superintendent? No, he also moved to an administrative position in Trenton. We fired a middle school principal after only a year, who was fired from his previous job after only two years? No, he's now a trainer of principals for the state... in Trenton.
All you need to do to get ahead in NJ educational politics is get booted from Montclair, it seems.
Having Montclair on your resume opens all kinds of doors, because of their political/PR image. However, get past the surface of the shiny apple and you find the worms.
They didn't mention in that article that they did not meet AYP from 2002-2005, for example. Nor did they mention the severe achievement gap between black male students and the rest of the student population. Nor did they mention the teachers arrested for embezzlement, or the students arrested for assault on school property, or the growing influence of gangs in the schools.
Nor do they mention the students whose parents send their kids to nearby private Montclair Kimberly Academy, because the best students are known to fall through the cracks in the public school.
But why would they? Just like why would the designers of NCLB show you the places where it doesn't work?
Okay... I really need to do some work, as this has taken up way too much of the workday so far. Hopefully more when I get home.
[ December 11, 2006, 04:22 PM: Message edited by: FlyingCow ]
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Oy, I only skimmed through this thread, I didn't read every post but, my feelings on education, somewhat disjointed, as follows:
First off, realize that not everyone is going to college. Everyone CAN'T go to college. There aren't enough spaces, to say nothing of the fact that someone is going to have to do the millions of tech and manufacturing jobs this country, despite popular opinion, still has. Push tech and trade schools. They are well paying jobs, and they need to be worked just as much as we need college grads.
Second, reevaluate what our students need to look like when they get out of high school. What do we really want them to know? To be prepared for? We're living in an increasingly interdependent world, with cultures mixing into each other, and globalization ensuring that Americans can't just depend on walling themselves off. So:
We need to push foreign languages. Kids should be coming out of high school semi-fluent. It's not hard, kids all over the globe do it, else we wouldn't have so many English speakers world-wide.
They need to have critical thinking skills. It's not good enough to know that 3x7=21, that's just rote memorization. They need to be able to solve a complex problem that won't necessarily have a formula already created for it in a text book somewhere. We're creating little drones that memorize and spit facts back out like ATMs, not critical little child computers.
They need to have better interpersonal skills, and need to be able to functionally work together with a larger team of individuals. Inventions, innovations, jobs, a lot of the world today is built upon a team oriented foundation. They need to be able to function as a cog in a well oiled machine, not little mavericks.
They need to have a LOT more knowledge on the world around them. US social studies classes tend to focus far too much on US history, and not enough on World events. US history IS very important I feel, and I say this as someone who plans to be teaching social studies in a couple years. But they need to know what the situation in India is like, and Africa, Europe, China, all over the world. We need to create world citizens, not just US citizens. It'll help us compete in a global world better.
Foreign language, critical thinking, world knowledge, interpersonal skills, and more. If anyone has anything to add to that list, feel free to do so.
Why are we demanding that so many of our kids take a combined eight years of math and science? Yeah I know, that's four of each, but really, we KNOW that they aren't going to use all that. I think it's important to give every kid a good range of all their academic options, but I think that's far too narrow minded, and I think it wastes a lot of time that could be used prepping kids for other areas of education that'll help them when they get to college. We're using the same theories on education from the 50's, in a world that is vastly different from that one.
Teachers need to be paid more. We can't up their standards, constantly demand more from them, demand that they have a four (even though it's really a five or six) year degree to be able to teach kids, and them pay them less than a garbage collector. If you expect someone to shell out $40K to get that college education you're demanding of them, in a nation with skyrocketing education costs, it is RIDICULOUS to expect them to go into a career that pays $45K a year on average (though starting salary for a teacher is more like $30K), when a different four year degree could earn them thousands more right out of college. And we wonder why there aren't enough skilled teachers? For any other profession in America you pay what you have to, to lure the skilled people to the job you need them to perform. Why should education be any different?
For anyone interested, there's a special commission report being released this week on American education, the system, recommendations to fix it, etc.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Why are we demanding that so many of our kids take a combined eight years of math and science? Yeah I know, that's four of each, but really, we KNOW that they aren't going to use all that.
I agree with everything you've said except for this. It doesn't matter whether or not people are going to use the math and science they learn. They still need to know it so they can make informed decisions once they get out of high school. People need to be able to look at a sensationalistic news story and know that it's ridiculous. They need to know what the scientific method is and how it is applied. In addition to topical knowledge, math and science both teach important critcal thinking skills.
We're becoming a more scientific/technical society, we need to prepare children in high school for that reality.
I would add that there need to be more computer courses offered in high schools. Our high school had two, I believe. That's ridiculous, when a cursory examination of job requirements will tell you that computer skills are increasingly required in all jobs.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
DarkKnight, I am curious. Do you teach, have children, or speak with people who do? As a teacher and a parent, I love reading your facts, but I do not see your facts as the reality I am living.
Posted by Shan (Member # 4550) on :
Great points, Lyrhawn. I'd like to add that in the earlier stages though, our el ed kids aren't even getting the rote mem. part. So, all the "critical thinking" aside, a child that can't add 2+2 and get 4 or multiply 5X5 for 25, or know the difference between the're, there, and their (for example) will still do poorly in the upper grades.
We MUST get back to some basics in el ed, and yes, include more languages and world studies. El ed is a great age to get those interested kiddos hooked on learning about our world and how to communicate. Takes some of the tedium away from the needed rote work. *smile*
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Originally posted by blacwolve:
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
Why are we demanding that so many of our kids take a combined eight years of math and science? Yeah I know, that's four of each, but really, we KNOW that they aren't going to use all that.
I agree with everything you've said except for this. It doesn't matter whether or not people are going to use the math and science they learn. They still need to know it so they can make informed decisions once they get out of high school. People need to be able to look at a sensationalistic news story and know that it's ridiculous. They need to know what the scientific method is and how it is applied. In addition to topical knowledge, math and science both teach important critcal thinking skills.
We're becoming a more scientific/technical society, we need to prepare children in high school for that reality.
I would add that there need to be more computer courses offered in high schools. Our high school had two, I believe. That's ridiculous, when a cursory examination of job requirements will tell you that computer skills are increasingly required in all jobs.
You can't add all the classes that we need to add, and keep all the other stuff, without adding years onto school, or hours onto the day.
If you could give me some examples of how advanced physics and calculus are going to do the things you say, then alright, otherwise I think it's just wasting time. I took four years of science, and three of math in high school. I could've done with one less year of math, and one less year of science. I know everyone isn't the same, but I already had all the skills you're talking about before I took those classes, and I would have rather taken either more language, or music, or world civ classes. Why shouldn't I be allowed to make that decision for myself?
I think kids should have more computer classes too. This all requires a massive restructuring from K through 12. If I see information that proves me wrong, I'll change my mind, but there's so many other fundamental things that I think need to be changed, I'm not too attached to an extra year one way or the other of math or science, I just haven't seen any proof that it's all necessary, just assumptions.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
As long as you're requiring 3 years each of math and science, I agree with you. That was not at all clear from your initial post.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
Lyr- The thing is, if you talk to people interested in math and science, they'll say the exact opposite thing. That we should drastically reduce the amount of English, Foreign Languages, and Social Studies schools require, and drastically increase the amount of math and science.
I think the current system is the best compromise between the two positions.
Actually, I have much more complex opinions, but I have two finals tomorrow that I really need to study for. So I don't have time to write an essay on the subject.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:The thing is, if you talk to people interested in math and science
Like me?
quote:they'll say the exact opposite thing. That we should drastically reduce the amount of English, Foreign Languages, and Social Studies schools require, and drastically increase the amount of math and science.
Disagree. Perhaps you meant some people who are interested in math and science? (And my dad, who is a mathematical physicist and has acted as a consultant for LA Unified, does not think they should be teaching MORE math. He thinks they should be using better textbooks. )
quote:I think the current system is the best compromise between the two positions.
I agree with that, mostly.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka:
quote:The thing is, if you talk to people interested in math and science
Like me?
quote:they'll say the exact opposite thing. That we should drastically reduce the amount of English, Foreign Languages, and Social Studies schools require, and drastically increase the amount of math and science.
Disagree. Perhaps you meant some people who are interested in math and science? (And my dad, who is a mathematical physicist and has acted as a consultant for LA Unified, does not think they should be teaching MORE math. He thinks they should be using better textbooks. )
I'm actually talking about "friends" here at Purdue. Purdue tends to breed an arrogance and self-righteousness in its engineering students that really isn't particularly attractive.
Edit (to make clear): So my opinion is rather biased. I've had this argument with people here many times, though, so it's a sore subject with me.
Purdue has seriously messed with my psyche.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Heh. This is, I am told, traditional among engineering students of many (if not all) universities. Posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan (Member # 5626) on :
Do high schools require 4 years each of math and science now? When I graduated in 2003 my high school only required 3 years of science (physical, biology, and chemistry) and completion of algebra II in math.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rappin' Ronnie Reagan: Do high schools require 4 years each of math and science now? When I graduated in 2003 my high school only required 3 years of science (physical, biology, and chemistry) and completion of algebra II in math.
It's a state thing. Ours required 4 years of math and 3 years of science. I actually took 5 years of math and seriously wish I'd taken 4 years of science, even though I'm a political science major now.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
I just talked to a good friend of mine, ironically an engineering student at Purdue, and she too thinks there needs to be more math and science, and much less social studies. Quite frankly I don't know how much less social studies can get before we just don't have it anymore. One year of US history, one year of world history, a half year of government, and a half year of economics. Yeah, that'll do it. 4,000 years of world history, 300 years of American history, how the world economy works, how our government works, all boiled down to the tiniest possible nutshell we can fit it in. But hey, I can see why we'd need to sacrifice that.
I'm curious to see how the experiment works in Florida, where kids have a bit more control over what classes they take.Florida Schools now require kids to take a set number of math/science/english and social studies courses, but then allows them to pick eight classes over four years to suit whatever career field they think they want. They can change their "major" at the beginning of each year of they want. It's really not much different, looking at it, then most other schools. I think they could kick it down to three years of math, and three years of English, and require a language (but then, I think language studies should start in elementary ed, but that's another issue) for two years. If they want to take more math, they have eight classes where they can choose to.
I need to see more studies. I think the problem is not in high schools, it's that kids need to be at a higher level than they are by the time they reach high school, which would make so much of this unnecessary, and they could focus on other things.
To clarify though, I'm not suggesting anything less than 3 mandatory years for science, and 2.5 to 3 years mandatory of math. I think better textbooks, better teachers, better students and better tests could streamline some of the process, maybe even eliminating a semester or two. But I also think this underscores how a cookie cutter might not be the best solution for the education system. Engineering students might have wished they had more math and science classes, I'm a History major, I wish I could have taken three or four more history classes. Maybe students should be given more control over their curriculum. Not TOTAL control by any means, but more. It's something I'd like to see studied or experimented with at least.
I think we should look at offering some sort of summer class web based component too. Maybe once or twice a week kids could go to school, and then do the rest of their learning in some sort of either online classroom, or through reading assignments/worksheets to get ahead. Summer vacation can still be summer vacation, but they can still be doing something to get ahead. Public school should take better advantage of the web. We had a forum in my AP English class that we posted on. Our teacher read all the posts every week and counted them, and we got credit based on participation (and a bit on quality of content). There was some amazing discussion going on in those forums about books, and world issues. And it was anonymous, people had display names just like here, so no one felt particularly afraid to jump in and discuss. English classes could have summer reading projects, combined with a web based forum component that the teacher could check, and add to, from their home.
Maybe for a summer math course, the student will get a CD-Rom, containing a few lessons, the email address of their teacher for the following semester, and a website with worksheets they can print out. Every other week they can take an online quiz that their teacher will check. It won't be an intensive, everyday thing, and there's no set homework. If they have a question, they can email the teacher.
Maybe for an extended summer history course, the student will get a few books to read, or a small textbook, and they'll have reading assignments, and they'll have to write a paper once a month to be submitted by email to their teacher. It promotes good writing schools, critical thinking, research skills, and is good world culture knowledge, depending on the courses offered.
I think in their freshman and sophmore summers, it should be optional that they can take these sorts of classes, with the knowledge that doing so might free up class time for more electives in the arts or foreign language. In the Junior and Senior summers, it should be mandatory, getting them prepped for college. Two online classes a summer isn't going to kill anyone. Just some ideas.
Edit to add: I want gym class overhauled too. I think one year of gym SHOULD be required, but drastically different than what I had. My gym was freshman year of high school. Half a semester was marching band (thank God), then I had to do swimming, then a whole semester was spent playing baseball, soccer, flag football, etc. I'm sorry but, school is for learning. I already know how to play all those sports.
I'm okay with a swimming component, as I wasn't a very strong swimmer before, and it was helpful. Other than that, I think gym should be changed into a nutrition/exercise/weight training program.
I think teenage years are the best time to explain nutrition to kids, as they are very vain, and what better time is their to explain that eating unhealthy food will make them fat, unattractive, and die early. That'd scare me enough to pay attention. Teach them how to eat healthy.
Then teach them how to work out. Teach them to use free weights, some health human anatomy stuff, and how to create a workout program. Combine that with cardio exercise, and how that that works with weight training and a great diet. Even if they ignore everything they are told and remember none of it (which I HIGHLY doubt), it's a million times more constructive than playing kickball for an hour each day.
[ December 12, 2006, 12:09 AM: Message edited by: Lyrhawn ]
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
I think there's a common misperception that math and science "look better" on an application than humanities. While students want to be well-rounded, if something won't fit on their semester schedule they tend to swing away from the humanities.
It's ironic, because the reason we have a writing section on the SAT now is because universities complained that they were admitting students who were weak in those areas.
quote:We had a forum in my AP English class that we posted on. Our teacher read all the posts every week and counted them, and we got credit based on participation (and a bit on quality of content). There was some amazing discussion going on in those forums about books, and world issues. And it was anonymous, people had display names just like here, so no one felt particularly afraid to jump in and discuss.
I would've loved this. It would have convinced me to try out AP English.
At my high school they've started letting students choose different "tracks." We had a math/science heavy track, a humanities-heavy track, a tech track and a finance track.
Every math class had a summer assignment and all the English classes had a reading list you needed to get through before school started. The one thing I didn't like about summer reading assignments was that it sometimes prevented me from reading books I actually wanted to read, since I didn't have as much time to do so during the school year.
--j_k
Posted by endersdragon (Member # 9959) on :
No clue if anything about this has been said already but I know for a fact that in my home state teachers didn't have to take a class about teaching kids with learning disabilities until a few years ago (post NCLB I believe). This means I being an aspie had such a hard time in school just because the the teachers had no clue how to handle me. Honestly if it was math, social studies, reading, spelling, or science they would ignore me because I was either good at them in the first 3 cases or bad in the last 2.... and simply put they could ignore me and didn't have the knowledge to deal with me (yelling at and touching an aspie are two things you defientally don't want to do... wonder why it was done with me so much). If NCLB has done nothing else I am glad it has stopped with teachers not knowing how the heck to deal with LDs... even if we are still ignored.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Sorry to disappoint you endersdragon, but even under NCLB education majors are only required to take 1 class that introduces us to the "exceptional learner" which is 3 semester hours and then a 1 hour lab where I think we do some observing of EL classes.
I don't think four semester hours out of the 150 I'm required to take is going to make that much of a difference. In those four semester hours we are supposed to get an overview of working with kids with all kinds of learning challenges, from physical disabilities to autism to gifted and talented kids. I don't think four hours is enough time to even adequately cover what I'd need to know to work with autistic kids, much less adequate to prepare me for working with every other type of exceptional learner I'll see in my classroom.
But then again, the whole special education system needs to be overhauled, there are so many issues like mainstreaming vs. separate classrooms, and getting the funding needed to meet IEP goals...it's a mess. Parents of exceptional kids need to pretty much become full time advocates for their kids, and often they feel they are in a battle against the administration to get the services their kids require.
I don't think NCLB has helped this situation, in fact most people I know who are either teachers or parents of exceptional kids think it's worse now than before.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
Elizabeth, I work in a large school district where the majority of the student population are minorities. I'm also very active in another tiny mostly white school district. Every school is different so you may not have the same issues we have but I know you will have some common themes, such as not enough time and certainly not enough money. Things are not always as they seem though. Again, using my school district, we are the poor urban minority filled district with large class sizes that has no money, yet we are hiring new administrators all the time. For the cost of each administrator (plus new office furniture, secretary and all the other stuff) we could hire 2 new full time teachers. We can't buy books but we can put in a brand new, state of the art HVAC system (costing hundreds of thousands of dollars) in the Administration Building where the newly purchased window AC units were working just fine. So did we really not have the money to buy books or hire new teachers? We always say that we are the poor innercity school district, and not funded like our surrounding rich white school districts are, but we receive tens of millions of dollars more than they do in state and federal funds, grants, and the like. That money is not counted in our budget though so it is impossible to say how much we truly spend to educate a child. In my opinion, I do believe many districts shortchange the classrooms so they can get more money. I am sure your district is filled with similar examples of poor leadership and financial mismanagement. We have rapes in our elementary schools that go unreported (until after the 4th time a parent called the police first and didn't trust the district to handle the problem), theft that is unreported, and so on. Take this post from FlyingCow: "You have to understand that Montclair is a PR school, first and foremost. From the outside, they put a shine on everything. We fired our principal? No, she moved to an administrative position in Trenton. We fired our superintendent? No, he also moved to an administrative position in Trenton. We fired a middle school principal after only a year, who was fired from his previous job after only two years? No, he's now a trainer of principals for the state... in Trenton.
All you need to do to get ahead in NJ educational politics is get booted from Montclair, it seems.
Having Montclair on your resume opens all kinds of doors, because of their political/PR image. However, get past the surface of the shiny apple and you find the worms.
They didn't mention in that article that they did not meet AYP from 2002-2005, for example. Nor did they mention the severe achievement gap between black male students and the rest of the student population. Nor did they mention the teachers arrested for embezzlement, or the students arrested for assault on school property, or the growing influence of gangs in the schools.
Nor do they mention the students whose parents send their kids to nearby private Montclair Kimberly Academy, because the best students are known to fall through the cracks in the public school." All of that is because of a corrupt school district, and has nothing to do with NCLB working or not, or any school program working or not. Corruption and mismanagement are terrible drains on school districts, bigger than any other single issue, again that is my opinion. No one can do much about it though because if you say anything people get very worked up that you are accusing teachers of not working hard which is an excellent way to deflect all critiscm. Granted it has nothing to do with what the actual problem is. Another issue I hear frequently is that teachers are not being paid enough which is not exactly like it seems to be and has been mentioned in this thread. Honestly, teachers are doing the job now, and for the most part, are doing their jobs very well. We really don't need to pay them more because they are doing their jobs now under awful conditions. Paying them more money will not solve anything except to cost taxpayers more money. Low teacher pay does not cause bad conditions in the classroom. What we really need to do is to clean up the awful leadership and financial blunders which will vastly improve the life of a teacher. By leadership, I really do not just mean Principals. I mean all the way up to, and certainly including, the school board and superintendent. FlyingCow provided a great example of incompentency being rewarded in leadership positions. If we clean up the leadership and vastly improve how money is spent, then we will have more money available to the people who truly need it, the classroom teacher. How many examples are there of a principal coming into a terrible school and turning it around? We need better management in our schools. Yes, I know this will not solve every problem but it will greatly improve our schools.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
There are a lot of good comments here from fellow teachers. Thank you for your good information.
I would like to add a few comments.
First, no one has mentioned the idea that "if no child is left behind, how can any child get ahead?". Certainly, I read at least one comment where teachers are encouraged to ignore their more successful and motivated students and instead focus on bringing the less successful/motivated students up to speed.
Second, as a performing arts teacher, I see a HUGE disservice done to our students in the subjects that are not tested in NCLB. At my school, testing focuses on math and reading. Thus, the schedule was modified such that math and reading take up 45% of the curriculum time. The other half of the time is shared by electives, PE, history, and science. While I agree that reading and math are fundamental subjects that a student must master to be successful in other subjects, this kind of schedule change (which was inspired by a need to meet Annual Yearly Progress) comes at a great cost.
Music classtime was reduced to 60% of its pre-NCLB time. The home economics program was eliminated. (And people wonder why students move out and don't know how to cook anything except for frozen prepared dinners.) Students also have half of their former P/E and health time.
So, potentially, we end up with a nation of fat students who can read well, write a great five-paragraph essay (a format despised by many-a college professor, I might add), and be able to function reasonably well at math. Unfortunately, these students wouldn't be able to recognize a Monet painting or Mozart composition. They would think that the American Revolutionary War was fought over slavery and their understanding of science would go only as far as what Hollywood said is and is not possible.
The way NCLB has been implemented, it is NOT working. But the goal of trying to give every child an education is laudable.
When I teach my band class, I certainly try to leave no child left behind. If I have one or two students who squeak and squawk their way through an otherwise flawless performance, the work of the entire class is wasted. If Johnny P is screwing around in the back of the room, I have a vested interest in making him a functioning part of my classroom; when we go to perform in public, *I* am judged on how well each student performs. Whereas in a math class, Johnny P could be failing everything and it does not directly affect his classmates. No one but Johnny P, his parents and his teacher even need know that Johnny is failing!!
So how do I deal with Johnny in the bandroom? I can't halt the instruction of my hard-working and talented students to work with Johnny individually, particularly given that the majority of classtime is group activity time rather than individual work time. So, I arrange with Johnny to meet him during lunch or before school or after school to get him up to speed. I make a phone call home to his parents, asking that they remind Johnny to practice. Sometimes, I even tell the parents specifically what it is I assigned for Johnny to learn!
Do I get paid extra for the attention I give Johnny? No! So what do I get out of it?
There are a few things. First, I'm not embarrassed when Johnny (or the other five strugglers) mess up at a performance. Second, I see that Johnny has gained a sense of pride at seeing hard work pay off. Third, I get the personal satisfaction of helping a student succeed.
Unfortunately, there are a large number of teachers out there who are NOT motivated in any way to help struggling students, and NCLB does NOT facilitate this. As for solutions, I think that Shan's post above makes a great deal of sense, but I also think that teachers should be encouraged to expend extra time helping students, either through pay incentives or being held individually accountable for the success of their students. I am certainly held accountable by my music superintendent if students of mine are not performing at a given level.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
quote:Honestly, teachers are doing the job now, and for the most part, are doing their jobs very well. We really don't need to pay them more because they are doing their jobs now under awful conditions. Paying them more money will not solve anything except to cost taxpayers more money. Low teacher pay does not cause bad conditions in the classroom.
Did you notice what I quoted about the huge percentage of teachers leaving the profession? And the vast majority say the low pay is a primary factor. Not to mention all the bright, motivated college students who won't even consider teaching as a career because of the low pay scale. We lost those before they even stepped into a classroom.
Consider this: My husband is a paramedic/firefighter, and when the fire department was facing a paramedic shortage, they offered incentive pay for people to go to school and get their paramedic license, and after they graduated they continued to offer them incentive pay to encourage them to keep up their qualifications. Imagine that - they needed people with more education so they made the job more attractive by paying more. Imagine this - it worked! We're facing a teacher shortage in this country, and instead of doing the logical thing, we've used NCLB to make getting your teaching certification MORE difficult and more expensive than ever and put stricter requirements on teachers and held them more accountable than ever before and haven't offered them any increase in pay. Gee, I wonder if that teaching shortage is going to get better soon?
I agree with you about top-heavy administration departments and the amount of money spent on them. I've been to our county board of education building and it's beautiful - expensive carpeting and furnishings and very comfortable in all seasons. Whereas my 3rd grader goes to school in a trailer building where the teacher has to choose whether to teach or run the window air conditioning unit. She can't do both, because the unit is so loud the kids can't hear her. But if she doesn't run it in the 90+ Alabama temperatures we get in early fall and late spring, the students are too miserable to concentrate.
I think as long as there are portable classrooms in the district, the superintendent of the schools should have to work out of a portable building himself. Or herself, in the case of our district.
But I disagree with you that paying teachers more won't help solve problems because I think it will indeed solve one of the biggest problems facing our educational system - how to get good, qualified, dedicated teachers in to our classrooms and keep them there.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Sorry for the double post, but this is something that makes me wonder:
quote:The home economics program was eliminated. (And people wonder why students move out and don't know how to cook anything except for frozen prepared dinners.) Students also have half of their former P/E and health time.
What is it we expect the schools to teach our children vs what we as a society expect their parents should teach them? I don't consider it the school's job to teach my daughters and son how to cook - that's my job as their mother. That's a basic life skill they need to learn before they leave my home, much like how to vacuum and how to wash dishes and how to do laundry, etc. I don't have a problem with home economics programs being cut because I don't think that's the school's job to teach those types of skills.
I do think health education and physical education has some value, but if my kids were overweight I wouldn't blame the school - it's my job to feed my children properly and encourage them to exercise.
Maybe I just look at things differently? Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I think physical education has a lot of value. Even beyond the mental and physical benefits, I think for a lot of kids, Belle, that these days school may be the only place they have to physically play with other kids.
I also think learning how to play on team sports has a lot of value.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
quote: Did you notice what I quoted about the huge percentage of teachers leaving the profession? And the vast majority say the low pay is a primary factor. Not to mention all the bright, motivated college students who won't even consider teaching as a career because of the low pay scale. We lost those before they even stepped into a classroom.
NEA "A historic turnover is taking place in the teaching profession. While student enrollments are rising rapidly, more than a million veteran teachers are nearing retirement. Experts predict that overall we will need more than 2 million new teachers in the next decade. This teacher recruitment problem, which has reached crisis proportions in some areas, is most acute in urban and rural schools; for high-need subject areas such as special education, math and science, and for teachers of color. Teacher compensation is a significant deterrent to recruitment. Teachers are still paid less than professions that require comparable education and skills. Teachers still are not valued and respected to the extent of their actual contributions to society."
Now that seems to support your arguement, right? But let's see what else the article says
"But solving the teacher shortage is not strictly a numbers game. Much has been said about the need to bring more young people into the teaching profession. But too little attention has been paid to holding onto the quality teachers already hired—both the beginning teachers as well as the more seasoned ones.
The statistics for turnover among new teachers are startling. Some 20 percent of all new hires leave the classroom within three years. In urban districts, the numbers are worse—close to 50 percent of newcomers flee the profession during their first five years of teaching.
New teachers overwhelmed, don't get enough help Why do new teachers leave? They say they feel overwhelmed by the expectations and scope of the job. Many say they feel isolated and unsupported in their classrooms, or that expectations are unclear.
In education today, the first-year teacher is typically assigned to the same tasks, in and out of the classroom, as a long-time veteran. Quality mentoring programs for all first-year teachers are vitally important. Mentoring enables them to learn “best practices” from seasoned professionals, and research shows that new teachers who participate in induction programs are nearly twice as likely to stay in the profession as those who don't.
It is unacceptable for teachers to be assigned out-of-field. Such assignments are a disservice to students and teachers alike.
NEA believes all teacher retention efforts must begin with the recognition of the complexity of teaching. And that means we must give teachers the time they need to plan and confer with their colleagues. Provide them with the mentors and professional development they need. Reduce class size so they can devote more time to each student. To meet the growing demand for teachers, first we must do more to keep the good teachers we already have."
I think the last line is the most important... To meet the growing demand for teachers, first we must do more to keep the good teachers we already have This is from the NEA. Additionally, like I said, if leadership is improved first, there will be more money for the people who need it most, the classroom teacher. How will paying a teacher $10K more a year improve the conditions in a classroom if the leadership is not improved as well? [edited because I clicked too fast on my last line]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Almost every teacher I know who has left teaching (including myself) has done so for two reasons: money and stress. Yes, reducing class sizes and otherwise improving classroom conditions is a must. But so is paying teachers more.
quote:Unfortunately, these students wouldn't be able to recognize a Monet painting or Mozart composition. They would think that the American Revolutionary War was fought over slavery and their understanding of science would go only as far as what Hollywood said is and is not possible.
And this is different from pre-NCLB how?
quote:Unfortunately, there are a large number of teachers out there who are NOT motivated in any way to help struggling students
What tripe.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I would be curious how the percentage of men leaving teaching compares to women.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Why, Stormy? Women make up a larger percentage of teachers than men (right?), but I think the gap has narrowed quite a bit.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
According to the Washington Post:
quote:Only 6 percent of teachers are African American, and 5 percent are Hispanic, Asian or come from other ethnic groups. Men represent barely a quarter of teachers, which the association says is the lowest level in four decades.
"We must face the fact that although our current teachers are the most educated and most experienced ever, there are still too many teachers leaving the profession too early, not enough people becoming teachers and not enough diversity in the profession," NEA President Reg Weaver said in a statement.
So the gap hasn't narrowed, but gotten wider.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Wow. Thanks for finding that, Belle. I had no idea.
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
Still no time to post. My apologies.
I just had a minute to read up, and I'm biting my tongue because I have a lot to do still before 6 pm.
Just wanted to add that my reasons for leaving teaching as a profession after four years (in three separate schools) were, in no particular order:
- needless time wasted on federal/state/town mandated paperwork and "training" that had little bearing on the classroom - little support from incompetent administrators - the bureaucracy of federal/state/local red tape, primarily that created by efforts to fulfill NCLB - working 60-80 hours per week in and outside of the classroom for roughly the same pay as I make now working 40 at a job I forget about at the end of each day.
I'll try to get on more later - so many people have said a lot of great things (especially DarkKnight's comments about mismanagement and corruption).
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
No, no, Rivka. I said 'leaving', not currently employed. Though, now that I think about it, the percentage employed does touch on that.
Thanks for the link, Belle.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: No, no, Rivka. I said 'leaving', not currently employed.
I see now that it's not clear from my response, but I understood that.
quote: Though, now that I think about it, the percentage employed does touch on that.
That was what I was trying to get at.
I also wondered why you thought there might be a significant gender gap in terms of rate of attrition.
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
More stats that may shed light on the issue of male teachers and why they leave:
quote:Working conditions and low salaries are by far the primary reasons cited by individuals who do not plan to continue teaching until retirement. Twenty percent of teachers say unsatisfactory working conditions keep them from wanting to stay in the profession.i And 37 percent who do not plan to teach until retirement blame low pay for their decision to quit teaching.i The percentages are even greater for minority teachers (50%), for male teachers (43%), and for teachers under 30 (47%).
quote:Slow extinction of the male teacher. The percentage of male elementary teachers (9%) and male secondary teachers (35%) has fallen gradually since 1961 and now is at the lowest level in four decades.i More money, more male teachers. States with higher teacher salaries tend to have the most male teachers. Michigan ranks first in the percentage of male teachers (37%), and ranks in the top five nationally in teacher pay. Mississippi ranks 50th in the percentage of male teachers (18%), and ranks 49th in teacher pay.ii
from here. Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Rivka, a lot of reasons that I don't want to go into. Probably should have thought about that before bringing it up, I guess. :/
On another, related note, there was an excellent link posted on Ornery about women and mathematical education at the university level. It kind of touches on some of the stuff here and is food for thought....
Ah, here it is.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
quote:Michigan ranks first in the percentage of male teachers (37%)
That's where I grew up, and where I hope to teach.
What's the statistical liklihood of me quitting in the first year or two?
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Almost every teacher I know who has left teaching (including myself) has done so for two reasons: money and stress. Yes, reducing class sizes and otherwise improving classroom conditions is a must. But so is paying teachers more.
quote:Unfortunately, these students wouldn't be able to recognize a Monet painting or Mozart composition. They would think that the American Revolutionary War was fought over slavery and their understanding of science would go only as far as what Hollywood said is and is not possible.
And this is different from pre-NCLB how?
quote:Unfortunately, there are a large number of teachers out there who are NOT motivated in any way to help struggling students
What tripe.
Rivka, the difference between pre NCLB and post NCLB is this. Before NCLB, administrators were more likely to support performing and creative arts classes than they are now. Now they are getting pressure from the act to cut back on the 'extras' to improve math and reading test scores. Nevermind that increased test scores do not necessarily mean that a student is actually better at math or reading.
My point is, if programs like NCLB continue, then it will be increasingly difficult to get teaching time or administrative support in subjects that are not tested in our state (like science, social studies, and the arts).
As for the second comment you isolated and referred to as tripe: I am curious why you think it is tripe.
Perhaps I did not clearly state my meaning. Certainly the majority of teachers are intrinsically motivated to help all of their students. Otherwise they would not be teachers. However, there is nothing in the education system in our country that encourages teachers to strive for high achievement from 100 percent of their students. The system itself does not encourage teachers to spend extra effort or 'go the extra mile' to help the four worst students in a given class. The only teachers who make the extra effort are already doing it.
What about those teachers who strictly follow their union-approved schedules? The ones who show up strictly at 7:30 then leave exactly at 3:30, staying not an extra minute, taking no work home, and teaching only the curriculum that their school requires? Unfortunately, my own school has a number of these teachers. A minority, to be sure, but extant nonetheless.
A number of these teachers are burnt out, simply put. They are working until they can retire and gain their pension. They are sick of doing all of the extra work for no additional pay. What's the point, they ask. I'll get paid more based on how many years I work for the district, or how many college credits I earned. And if Johnny fails, it's nothing off my back. He's not working hard enough. He's not a good enough student to be in my class.
What systems can be developed to a) find teachers who are willing to put the effort into teaching all students and b) reward teachers for this behavior, thereby increasing the frequency of the behavior? Merit-based pay? All-right. But how do you define a teacher's merit? Student grades? No, then you have grade inflation. Standardized test scores? This only encourages teaching to the test, and what about subjects for which there IS no test?
But perhaps I misinterpreted why you meant it was tripe. I certainly didn't mean to insult the vast majority of teachers in the world; people who chose teaching over other careers that would almost certainly have been more financially lucrative. People for whom the joy of seeing students succeed is worth far more to them than mere money.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
Also Rivka, you said you left because of high stress and low pay. I'm going to assume, given the intelligence you display on these boards, that you were an effective teacher. I'm assuming that you were able to reach out to struggling students and innovate ways to get them to succeed. I'm going to also assume that you received no pay raise for such successes. In fact, you probably got paid LESS than some other teachers who might be lazy, unmotivated, and uninterested in their students' achievement.
Forgetting for the moment that it is nearly impossible to objectively judge this, would it have made a difference to you if you were able to be paid according to how good of a teacher you were, rather than simply how long you taught?
Posted by Fractal Fraggle (Member # 9803) on :
quote:Originally posted by BandoCommando: So how do I deal with Johnny in the bandroom? ... So, I arrange with Johnny to meet him during lunch or before school or after school to get him up to speed. I make a phone call home to his parents, asking that they remind Johnny to practice. Sometimes, I even tell the parents specifically what it is I assigned for Johnny to learn! ...
So what happens when Johnny P tells you to shove it when you ask him to come in after school? What happens when Johnny's parents tell you that their son is your problem during the day, not theirs? What happens when Johnny's parents tell you they can't make him do anything? (All of these reactions have happened to the teachers I know) Should you be held accountable for his performance then?
I guess you could kick him out of the band for dragging down the group, but that's a luxury the 9th grade English or algebra teachers don't have.
That's my problem with the NCLB idea of holding teachers accountable. All the teachers I know try their hardest to teach kids, going so many extra miles it's ridiculous. But sometimes, the kids don't want to learn and their parents won't make them. Are we supposed to penalize teachers for that?
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fractal Fraggle: That's my problem with the NCLB idea of holding teachers accountable. All the teachers I know try their hardest to teach kids, going so many extra miles it's ridiculous. But sometimes, the kids don't want to learn and their parents won't make them. Are we supposed to penalize teachers for that?
I totally agree with this. My husband even had some students whose parents preferred the kids failed. There was a female student whose parents believed she would be better spending her time finding a man to take care of her. It is politically easier to blame the teachers than the parents. I think a huge part of the problem is that it is so complex a problem. If your looking at special ed, you are looking at different issues than if you are looking at ap. Inner cities have different problems then rural. At some level, we want to make schools into businesses, measure productivity and so forth- put in x, get x widgets. But the complexity is just too great for that to work.
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
quote:Does anyone know about the tests themselves? Teaching the test is only bad if the concepts covered on the test are irrelevant. It was my understanding that the tests covered the concepts needed to pass to the next grade.
My husband writes most of the math and social studies standardized tests for 4 states. He also writes for the ACT, GMAT, and GRE. I am very familiar with the process of how the tests are written. I also am familiar with standardized tests from my years with an online education company – we did some standardized test prep courses.
Each state has academic standards created by its Board of Education. They set forth how many years of each subject a student must take to get a diploma and what must be covered in each subject. Standardized tests are written by independent, for-profit companies. Each year, people from the testing companies (95% of which are former teachers, btw) meet with representatives from the Board of Ed to determine what needs to be covered in the tests, based on the academic standards of the state. The testing companies then provide those guidelines to their writers (like Andrew), who all have Ph.D.s and extensive training in test writing. As long as teachers are covering the material mandated by the state academic standards (which are usually pretty reasonable, if not a bit easy), the students should do reasonably well on the tests.
quote:First off, realize that not everyone is going to college. Everyone CAN'T go to college. There aren't enough spaces, to say nothing of the fact that someone is going to have to do the millions of tech and manufacturing jobs this country, despite popular opinion, still has. Push tech and trade schools. They are well paying jobs, and they need to be worked just as much as we need college grads.
I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I think there should be tech diplomas in every high school (there are in many high school in Georgia). The students are required to know basics in the main 4 subjects, but they can major, for lack of a better word, in things like carpentry and automotive repair.
quote:I think as long as there are portable classrooms in the district, the superintendent of the schools should have to work out of a portable building himself.
You said it.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
"Elizabeth, I work in a large school district where the majority of the student population are minorities. I'm also very active in another tiny mostly white school district."
Thank you for your explanation.
I work in a small, mostly white school district.
It is a close community, the teachers are excellent and have worked in the district for years rather than bailing for more money because it is such a nice place to work, but the free and reduced lunch population is not meeting AYP.
We are already discussing cutting into the Title One fund to pay for other services that NCLB says we must have due to being such a bad district.
Our money is not absorbed by administration, there is no overt misappropriation of funds, it is a nice place to be for students and teachers.
It just makes me sad, because we are not what the numbers say we are: failures.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:My husband writes most of the math and social studies standardized tests for 4 states. He also writes for the ACT, GMAT, and GRE. I am very familiar with the process of how the tests are written. I also am familiar with standardized tests from my years with an online education company – we did some standardized test prep courses.
Each state has academic standards created by its Board of Education. They set forth how many years of each subject a student must take to get a diploma and what must be covered in each subject. Standardized tests are written by independent, for-profit companies. Each year, people from the testing companies (95% of which are former teachers, btw) meet with representatives from the Board of Ed to determine what needs to be covered in the tests, based on the academic standards of the state. The testing companies then provide those guidelines to their writers (like Andrew), who all have Ph.D.s and extensive training in test writing. As long as teachers are covering the material mandated by the state academic standards (which are usually pretty reasonable, if not a bit easy), the students should do reasonably well on the tests.
The problem is that I'm not sure that the state academic standards were designed to be used as exhaustive fodder for standardized tests.
My ex is a third grade teacher. Her class did a project on Heroes. Everyone picked a hero, and gave a report and did an oral report, written report, and some artwork. The kids picked which hero they'd profiled. One kid did his dad. The white kids either, on their own, picked Kennedy, Lincoln, or Washington and most of the other black and latino kids picked MLK. It's just how it worked out. For the most part, I think that this is a wonderful activity for third-graders.
I'm not sure that there is a standardized test that's adequate to capturing the importance of this class Unit, nor do I believe that the Board of Education standards articulate how important such units are such that the standardized test makers base their tests from these sorts of units.
Mrs.M,
Your husband is following his marching orders, and I'm sure he is very good at it, but it's possible that the Board of Ed. is following the wrong paradigm considering the prominent place these tests have taken in the curriculum.
[ December 12, 2006, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by BandoCommando: Forgetting for the moment that it is nearly impossible to objectively judge this, would it have made a difference to you if you were able to be paid according to how good of a teacher you were, rather than simply how long you taught?
I was. At least for the school I was teaching at, relatively speaking.
Yet another advantage to teaching private school rather than public.
Posted by BandoCommando (Member # 7746) on :
quote:Originally posted by Fractal Fraggle:
quote:Originally posted by BandoCommando: So how do I deal with Johnny in the bandroom? ... So, I arrange with Johnny to meet him during lunch or before school or after school to get him up to speed. I make a phone call home to his parents, asking that they remind Johnny to practice. Sometimes, I even tell the parents specifically what it is I assigned for Johnny to learn! ...
So what happens when Johnny P tells you to shove it when you ask him to come in after school? What happens when Johnny's parents tell you that their son is your problem during the day, not theirs? What happens when Johnny's parents tell you they can't make him do anything? (All of these reactions have happened to the teachers I know) Should you be held accountable for his performance then?
I guess you could kick him out of the band for dragging down the group, but that's a luxury the 9th grade English or algebra teachers don't have.
That's my problem with the NCLB idea of holding teachers accountable. All the teachers I know try their hardest to teach kids, going so many extra miles it's ridiculous. But sometimes, the kids don't want to learn and their parents won't make them. Are we supposed to penalize teachers for that?
You make an excellent point. I'm not a true advocate of the traditional merit-based pay, as you can see from some of my other questions regarding implementation. You bring up another question of implementation. Is there a way to reconcile the two options? On the one hand, we have a system where there is no extrinsic motivation for teachers to work harder. On the other, we have a system where teachers may be held responsible for things that are outside their sphere of influence, as in the cases you described.
I will readily admit that I lack the creativity and intelligence to come up with a workable solution, but I feel strongly that teachers do need to be held accountable. In my case, I'm held accountable by a district administrator who listens to my performances, occassionaly observes my teaching, and checks up with me regularly. This is different from the kind of observation my building principal does. THAT is simply inane comments and observations about whether my rules are clearly posted, etc. My supervisor is a highly trained educator in the music field with inhuman standards. He works with about200 teachers in my district. Admittedly, other teachers and I feel like he's breathing down our necks, but this pressure helps many of us to work harder than we otherwise would.
Of course, such a system could not be mandated federally, or even by states. The kind of close observation we receive would drive (has already driven) many teachers away from the district and the profession. But....it's a thought.
Posted by Fractal Fraggle (Member # 9803) on :
I don't know how you motivate the teachers who lack the intrinsic motivation to do better. I know they exist (from my own experiences growing up) but I honestly don't think they're in the majority. How do you avoid treating the good teachers like dirt but still manage to get rid of the bad ones?
Do things like paying teachers more for higher test scores, insisting on mostly useless certifications, and extreme micromanagement really improve teacher quality or do they drive people away from the profession?
I'm honestly not sure what do do about the situation. I personally think that teachers should be paid better so that there won't be a shortage. Without a shortage, schools can pick and choose what teachers they hire in the first place. I know that in many districts a teacher basically can't get fired unless they touch a kid. Probably we should find a way to comprehensively evaluate teachers for job performance (not just on test scores or grades) but I'd want to make sure that teachers don't have to fear for their jobs because a principal wants to hire a friend or because they manage their classrooms in a way the principal doesn't like or because a parent complained.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:I don't know how you motivate the teachers who lack the intrinsic motivation to do better.
That problem, if you substitute the word "student," citizen, person, insurgent, businessman, daughter for the word "teacher," is one of the most underthought about issues in our world.
The first being, I think, what constitutes better.
[ December 13, 2006, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: Irami Osei-Frimpong ]
Posted by Coccinelle (Member # 5832) on :
"Do things like paying teachers more for higher test scores, insisting on mostly useless certifications, and extreme micromanagement really improve teacher quality or do they drive people away from the profession?"
I really don't think so. I have watched my mother this year work her rear off, from 7am to 8pm trying to get her students ready for TAKS (the Texas test). I watch the teachers at the school I teach at slip out fifteen minutes early every day and hand their students packets to study for TAKS. Most likely, my mother's students will do very well on the TAKS. According to the October scores for my school about 40% will fail. Here's the best part... are you ready? The teacher's at my school are paid bonuses if a certain percentage (60 percent) of their students pass. My mother's school has no pay incentive.
Money helps, but really, a quality teacher doesn't work hard for the stipend. The stipend or extra pay might movitate one initially, but being a good teacher takes a lot out of a person. It's a way of life, not a job. The quality teacher does the job that needs to be done in order to get their students to the right point. They don't clock out at 3:55 and leave it all at school. It's really just not possible.
At least that's my experience. I tried to be the "school stays at school" teacher and I didn't like the quality of teacher that I was.
On the NCLB front-- one of the problems that we faced in my last school district was that students didn't see the value in passing the state tests. Other than the 11th grade test, that needed to be passed to graduate (and they have 5 tries), there were no negative consequences for the students who failed the test. Many of my students told me that they didn't care what happened to the school, the teachers etc. They didn't see how the test affected them and they really didn't care. They figured (correctly) that their passing the test would bring the district more money that they would never benefit from.
Posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong (Member # 2229) on :
quote:On the NCLB front-- one of the problems that we faced in my last school district was that students didn't see the value in passing the state tests.
Depending on the material tested, the students may be right. If the test is only there to judge the school, and not, you know, for the greater glory of education, then the students rightfully don't have anything invested in their performance.
Posted by endersdragon (Member # 9959) on :
quote:Originally posted by Belle: Sorry to disappoint you endersdragon, but even under NCLB education majors are only required to take 1 class that introduces us to the "exceptional learner" which is 3 semester hours and then a 1 hour lab where I think we do some observing of EL classes.
I don't think four semester hours out of the 150 I'm required to take is going to make that much of a difference. In those four semester hours we are supposed to get an overview of working with kids with all kinds of learning challenges, from physical disabilities to autism to gifted and talented kids. I don't think four hours is enough time to even adequately cover what I'd need to know to work with autistic kids, much less adequate to prepare me for working with every other type of exceptional learner I'll see in my classroom.
But then again, the whole special education system needs to be overhauled, there are so many issues like mainstreaming vs. separate classrooms, and getting the funding needed to meet IEP goals...it's a mess. Parents of exceptional kids need to pretty much become full time advocates for their kids, and often they feel they are in a battle against the administration to get the services their kids require.
I don't think NCLB has helped this situation, in fact most people I know who are either teachers or parents of exceptional kids think it's worse now than before.
Yeah I agree it is not good but then again when has it ever been. We need more schools for aspies for one, but theres only one real public school that I know of and only a few private (generally boarding) schools. People never get that weither or not they can get along in regular classes isn't the only cause for concern.
Depression runs much to rampent in aspies (for an example of this other then myself, I have a friend that goes to what was formerly the ASPIE school, forget what its called now, that was suicidal by the age of 12 due to bullying.) On top of that I have an online friend with a 12 year old son with PDD-NOS whos teachers think its alright if he is getting a D even though he has a 140 something IQ, (not to mention the time he was arrested for hitting someone when they grabbed him, granted they lightly grabbed him but if you grab an aspie he can't be held accountable for what then happens.)
And those are just asperger (sorta) examples, go to any other similiar invisable "mild" disorder and you will see similar kinds of problems. I have heard that still today most deaf parents want their deaf kids (assuming they have them) to go to the deaf school (man if I said deaf one more time! lol.) So in short the entire special education system is a mess.
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