Education

[Bob S.]

Topher asked this of my comments in page 33 of the Bush Bashing topic.

"In your opinion, what is wrong with a standardized test."

The tests remove the ability of the teacher to more creatively teach her students. There has been a lot of talk regarding "teaching to the test" that teachers must do. That is counter to the styles of learning that must go on ina school room in order for true learning to occur.

There are Three Levels of Comprehension that exist. The standardized tests only examine the first level, the least sophisticated level. That deals with the "Lieral" characterized by "Facts and details" and "Rote learning and memorization". And that is how the techers must teach in order to attain the best results for their classes. Teaching students how to take a test is not teaching the more important aspect of learning, how to think.

Another aspect of the tests is that they are usually taken way too early in the school year. Here in VA, the tests are usually at the end of May whereas school is in sesion until the middle of June. That leaves about least 2 weeks of school time wasted. In fact, parents and teachers have complained about the lack of anything to do with that time. Instead of 181 instructional days of school, we now have less than 170.

"It creates a baseline and allows for direct comparrison. The use of differing tests, school district by school district, will only make the results incomperable. When you conduct a poll you certainly don't ask different questions to different people."

The point of testing children is to measure how well they are doing. Or at least that is how it should be. I don't see that much need to compare different schools with each other. There has been a concept of one year's improvement in one year's time. That should be the standard for all students.

We don't need standardized tests to know which schools are doing poorly. Threatening schools with revocatiomn of their accreditation is extreme, in my view. What should happen is that those schools that are known to be behind should be the ones that are helped the most within a school district.

The other solution is to give students a chance to go to a better school. But that would require them having their own transportation, impossible in a poor school district, which is where most of the at risk schools are. It would also overcrowd the good schools, causing more of a headache for them.

Now as for the tests, my suggestion was for the teachers/school board to create their own tests, but have them accepted by athe standardization people to assure that they meet the minimum requirements. And having to worry only about one set of tests per year for high schoolers, their final exams, would be a lot easier, especially for those who don't take tests easily.

It can also allow for a more relaxed method of teaching and allow the teachers to teach in their comfort zone.

No Child Left Behind is a laudable program, I just think it is being too much affected by the beurocratic mess that makes everything so simple seem so impossibly hard.

Bob S.

[Bob S.]

Topher asked this of my comments in page 33 of the Bush Bashing topic.

"In your opinion, what is wrong with a standardized test."

The tests remove the ability of the teacher to more creatively teach her students. There has been a lot of talk regarding "teaching to the test" that teachers must do. That is counter to the styles of learning that must go on ina school room in order for true learning to occur.

There are Three Levels of Comprehension that exist. The standardized tests only examine the first level, the least sophisticated level. That deals with the "Lieral" characterized by "Facts and details" and "Rote learning and memorization". And that is how the techers must teach in order to attain the best results for their classes. Teaching students how to take a test is not teaching the more important aspect of learning, how to think.

Another aspect of the tests is that they are usually taken way too early in the school year. Here in VA, the tests are usually at the end of May whereas school is in sesion until the middle of June. That leaves about least 2 weeks of school time wasted. In fact, parents and teachers have complained about the lack of anything to do with that time. Instead of 181 instructional days of school, we now have less than 170.

"It creates a baseline and allows for direct comparrison. The use of differing tests, school district by school district, will only make the results incomperable. When you conduct a poll you certainly don't ask different questions to different people."

The point of testing children is to measure how well they are doing. Or at least that is how it should be. I don't see that much need to compare different schools with each other. There has been a concept of one year's improvement in one year's time. That should be the standard for all students.

We don't need standardized tests to know which schools are doing poorly. Threatening schools with revocatiomn of their accreditation is extreme, in my view. What should happen is that those schools that are known to be behind should be the ones that are helped the most within a school district.

The other solution is to give students a chance to go to a better school. But that would require them having their own transportation, impossible in a poor school district, which is where most of the at risk schools are. It would also overcrowd the good schools, causing more of a headache for them.

Now as for the tests, my suggestion was for the teachers/school board to create their own tests, but have them accepted by athe standardization people to assure that they meet the minimum requirements. And having to worry only about one set of tests per year for high schoolers, their final exams, would be a lot easier, especially for those who don't take tests easily.

It can also allow for a more relaxed method of teaching and allow the teachers to teach in their comfort zone.

No Child Left Behind is a laudable program, I just think it is being too much affected by the beurocratic mess that makes everything so simple seem so impossibly hard.

Bob S.

[Boreas]

I have a comment about standardized testing. I don't know much about the No Child Left Behind program since I am not American.

Ontario brought in standardized testing just before we left the province. Kids got tested in something like grade four, grade eight and in high school. I remember the grade four level, but can't remember the other levels. I just know that they were done at intervals.

On paper such a program looks wonderful. Who doesn't want their child in an excellent learning environment? In practice there were many problems. One big one related to the difference between urban and rural schools. In downtown Toronto, there are schools with many many different ethnic groups and consequently languages. Children at grade four are probably just catching up to the level of English needed to pass the tests. A school in small-town southern Ontario may only have a couple of different groups of children, and likely all speak English in the home. It is not right nor accurate to judge those schools with the same standards.....it doesn't work and does not measure what it is intended.

Sometimes I think politicians are wanting to go back to the kind of world that TV told us was happening in the 1950s....Ozzie and Harriet families, good children etc. I don't think this is right, nor do I believe it is helpful. We must be able to educate children in today's world and with today's challenges. We must find measurement tools that address these complexities.

I could get going on this topic. I have worked with many children who fall outside the "norm". No child is disposable. I have seen where these types of systems seem to make some children disposable since they do take up more time than others. They just aren't cost effective. That is not how children should be treated. Invest wisely in our children and we will have productive adults one day. They are afterall our future leaders!

[Jason Lee]

where i live education is about
Reading
Writing
Arithmetic

[NudeTopher]

quote:

Originally posted by Bob S.:
Topher asked this of my comments in page 33 of the Bush Bashing topic.

To be honest,since you are one of the larger supporters, or at the minimum least critical,of Bush; I wanted to see what you thought of the poorly named "No Child Left Behind" brainchild of the president.

Being involved in the educational stystem as I am I have lots of opinions and more then a few contradictions in my thoughts.

Yes, I think that in order for us to get an real baseline standardized testing is necessary. The only way for this testing to have any validity is for that testing to include tests are 100% identical. If each and every school district or even if each state has it's own tests then you can't do an analyis of the results. Apples will always be apples and can never be compared to oranges.

The only true way to know what works and what doesn't work is through testing.

I agree that education is about more then just the memorization of dates, facts, and formulas. It is important to teach children to think, reason, and to be creative. Well constructed exams do just this.

You believe that teachers will only teach students how to score well on tests. This is a fallacy. If students are not taught to reason they will do poorly on both quanitative and verbal (i.e. creative writing, comprehension, and other non-math sections) parts of the exam.

Classroom participation, quiz, (regular) tests including mid-terms and finals all contribute to a student's final grade. The standardized test scores will not be the only measure of the student's success or failure. This is where the teacher's creativity in lesson planning, presentation, come into play.

Teachers seem to resent any and all atempts to quantify their effectivenes and this is just wrong. Teaching skills need to be measured, monitored, and improved. Teachers that are unable to teach must be removed from the classroom. I believe that tenure is good insofar as it protects teachers from being removed for their views and beliefs; but if they are ineffective tenure should not protect them from being taken out of the classroom.

Another aspect of the tests is that they are usually taken way too early in the school year. Here in VA, the tests are usually at the end of May whereas school is in sesion until the middle of June. That leaves about least 2 weeks of school time wasted. You make it sound like in VA there are no other tests besides the standardized tests. Why would a teacher stop teaching before final exams? I am not saying you are incorrect, but something just doesn't make sense.


[COLOR:BLACK]The point of testing children is to measure how well they are doing. Or at least that is how it should be. I don't see that much need to compare different schools with each other.
Comparing schools makes perfect sense. If each school takes a (slightly)different approach to education it allows you to learn what works, what doesn't work and adjust accordingly. It also allows you examine the effectiveness of administrators on the educational process

We don't need standardized tests to know which schools are doing poorly. Actually, you do. It is needed to establish baselines and benchmarks anything else is called conjecture.

Threatening schools with revocatiomn of their accreditation is extreme, in my view. What should happen is that those schools that are known to be behind should be the ones that are helped the most within a school district. Would you say that a hospital with an abnormally high morbidity and mortality rate retain it's accredidation? I should hope not. There must be a basic level of success needed or you are condoning failure. It may take replacing the teachers, it may take adding more teachers to reduce the class size, it may take adding resources, it may take a change of administration but you need to identify when a school is failing so that you can correct that situation.

The other solution is to give students a chance to go to a better school. But that would require them having their own transportation, impossible in a poor school district, which is where most of the at risk schools are. It would also overcrowd the good schools, causing more of a headache for them.I can only guess that here you are speaking about school vouchers - something I totally disagree with!The thought of vouchers and allowing students to shop schools is wrong on many levels.The better schools will cherry pick and only accept the better students and those without behavioral or social problems. This will make the original school that much worse. If we are talking about allowing public school tax money to be used to allow students to attend private, religious schools that in my opinion violates the basic tennants of the seperation of church/state. The schools must be improved not discarded.

Now as for the tests, my suggestion was for the teachers/school board to create their own tests, but have them accepted by athe standardization people to assure that they meet the minimum requirements. Allowing every school, school district, or state to develop it's own standardized tests smacks of "seperate but equal." By definition, if all of the tests are similar, but not the same they are NOT standardized.

And having to worry only about one set of tests per year for high schoolers, their final exams, would be a lot easier, especially for those who don't take tests easily.Few, if any of us enjoy taking tests. But if each student's grades and scores can't be compared how will a college or university admissions office work? 100% of the decisions would be subjective.

Bob S.

[NudeTopher]

quote:

Originally posted by Bob S.:
Topher asked this of my comments in page 33 of the Bush Bashing topic.


Bob S.

Bob, I must be completely honest. In some of my posts I've mentioned that I think that the right has been very successful at co-opting the language; they have been able to make half-baked or just plain wrong concepts sound good by the names that they have given them. "No Child Left Behind" is a good example.

With the possible exception of the Southern States (i.e. Alabama, Mississippi, et.al.) that don't care about public school education based on both their funding of it and their educational results...we can all agree that everyone values education. We can all agree that we want our children to receive the best possible education possible.

George Bush coined this silly term "No Child Left Behind" a term nobody could disagree with. Yet, his proposals are pretty off base and not endorsed by most educational experts. In short, NCLB was a good soundbite and nothing more.

However, when I said in my posts that his program was a failure and that it was really "Every Child Left Behind" I was commenting less on the program...and more on his failure to properly fund that and real educational programs.

[krcNY]

Christopher

You make many good points. We had issues last year and I asked about the "No Child Left Behind Act" and they really did not have anything to help my son.

I was told that they had larger classroom sizes..since the new budgets, they had to let teachers go.

I was told that they need to teach for the Terra Nova's and if the kid needed to learn something specific to get him a mentor or work on it at home.

We eventually had him diagnosed with a disabiltiy and NOW the gov't will step in and make sure he learns what is needed to pass the grade. Big difference this year to last school year.

Our son was failing school last year. When the Terra Nova results came in...he was in 8 and 9 grade levels when he was only a 6th grader. Math is toughest subject (which he failed miserably) he was at a 7.4 grade average on the TN. Go Figure. So basically he is Above Average even though he was failing on his report cards.

What do you think of this? His teachers told me their hands were tied. They could not give him the one on one he needed. But according to the TN, he is a very bright kid.

[NudeTopher]

KRC,

Last year I had some conversations with either you, or your husband (I don't recall which) about your son.

On the good news side: Even though I don't know anything about your particular school district, here in NYS we have some of the best schools, and best school systems in the nation. (Now that I go to school out of state, I really see the difference and benefits of growing up in a state that both values and funds public school education).

I firmly believe that class size is a key to educational success. In my experinece, from the time that I started up until now, I do much better in those classes that have less students. The teachers are able to identify individual areas of concern and address those issues so that we all succeed.

But, even the prosperous districts in New York are suffering from budget crunches. That is a shame but it's a reality. Now that your son has had his disability diagnosed you are in a better position. By law the district must provide an education appropriate to his particular disability (or to the best of my knowlege send him to a school that is more able to address his particular special needs).

You must remain his advocate to make certain that he gets all that he needs and all that he is entitled to under state law. I have no doubt that you and your husband are excellent advocates If the time comes where you have to be a thorn in the side of the school board then go for it. It is their responsibility to address these needs. The more they provide the better he will learn. The more he learns the happier he will be now and in later life.

Although our weather in the North East can suck, we live in a great state. On the whole, we value education; we don't mind spending the tax dollars to support education; and your son will have the ability to achieve more then if you lived elsewhere.

Christopher

[krcNY]

But I never got a direct answer as to what the No Child Act does.

WE currently have a 504 Accomodation plan into effect, which I pushed for last year. It really seems to help him. He passed his finals and finally made the honor roll the last semester. He seems to be on the right track this year. Of course I met with all of his teachers the second week of school to make sure they are aware of his learning disabilities. n Which you would not know he has any unless you paid any attention to him

[Naturist Mark]

quote:

Originally posted by krcNY:
But I never got a direct answer as to what the No Child Act does.

Wikipedia: No Child Left Behind

NCLB was based on the the "Texas Miracle", a state program implemented by Ron Paige (now head of the US Dept of Education) under then Governor George Bush. It has since come to light that the "Texas Miracle" was largely fraud, smoke and mirrors:
Scandal in an education ‘miracle’
The 'Texas Miracle'

The stated goals of NCLB are laudable. The implementation seems counter-productive in many aspects. It has imposed massive new costs on schools, for which Congress and the Administration have refused to provide adequate funding. Increasingly the law is now referred to as Every Child Left Behind.

-Mark

[NudeTopher]

quote:

Originally posted by Naturist Mark:

quote:

Originally posted by krcNY:
But I never got a direct answer as to what the No Child Act does.

Wikipedia: No Child Left Behind

NCLB was based on the the "Texas Miracle", a state program implemented by Ron Paige (now head of the US Dept of Education) under then Governor George Bush. It has since come to light that the "Texas Miracle" was largely fraud, smoke and mirrors:
Scandal in an education ‘miracle’
The 'Texas Miracle'

The stated goals of NCLB are laudable. The implementation seems counter-productive in many aspects. It has imposed massive new costs on schools, for which Congress and the Administration have refused to provide adequate funding. Increasingly the law is now referred to as Every Child Left Behind.

-Mark

Frequently I have said that the right is excellent at co-opting our language. After all, who could be against something that sounds so nice, and so positive, and so family value laden as "No Child Left Behind." The fact that most credible education experts scoffed at the actual proposals and funding was never properly allocated does not diminish the brilliant turn of phrase from the right. After all, now everybody thinks that Bush is pro-education.

I think listening to any of Bush's speeches and hearing him mangle the English language speaks volumes about how he values education.

So, what could be the real reason for NCLB? Might it not just be a bone tossed to his radical right base that will encourage the (and I believe unconstitutional) use of public tax money to pay for private religious schools?

When you emasculate the public schools and fund the conservative Christian schools is this not the real intent?

[Guest]

krcNY,

When my daughters were in high school they got mostly A's and even some A pluses. They did very well when they were in school, but they skipped a lot, and they both quit school and eventually ended up getting their GED's. They were both very bright, but they just didn't care.

[WacoTX]

Christopher, you are absolutely right. GW ruined Texas and now is doing his number on the U.S. Everything he does has to be a show, a front for something else he is doing.

[Bob S.]

"To be honest,since you are one of the larger supporters, or at the minimum least critical,of Bush; I wanted to see what you thought of the poorly named "No Child Left Behind" brainchild of the president."

Yes, Topher, and I agree with you it is currently a waste of time and money.

"The only way for this testing to have any validity is for that testing to include tests are 100% identical."

Schools should all have a minimum standard for all tests that are nationwide. I agree with that. But why use these specific standardized tests to accomplish that? Minimnum standards are necessary but they should be measured using the school's own testing system. There is no reason to create this new large test to compare.

What we need instead of testing is standardized grading, a grade that the teachers (or expert supervisors) can provide on each test they give that shows how well certain children have grasped certain concepts. This would do many things from assessing each child throughout the year to assessing how well a teacher is teaching the lessons.

"Classroom participation, quiz, (regular) tests including mid-terms and finals all contribute to a student's final grade."

But as krc mentioned, there can be a huge gap between grades in class and scores on standardized tests. How does one blance that and what is more important?

"You make it sound like in VA there are no other tests besides the standardized tests. Why would a teacher stop teaching before final exams?"

Because their lessons are over. They successfully taught everything their students needed to learn. The standardized tests are too important and some teachers have to worry so much about them that they cut short many different lessons. Two weeks is a long time when talking about teaching.

"It is needed to establish baselines and benchmarks anything else is called conjecture."

So how did we ever make it before standardized testing? Were we all in the dark regarding the failing schools?

"It may take replacing the teachers, it may take adding more teachers to reduce the class size, it may take adding resources, it may take a change of administration but you need to identify when a school is failing so that you can correct that situation."

Exactly. But why should the threat of losing accrediation be made. Why not just state that those that are having the most trouble get more money and assistance?

"I can only guess that here you are speaking about school vouchers - something I totally disagree with!"

I disagree with vouchers as well. What I was saying was that around here, if a school performed poorly two years in a row (I think), the parents have the choice to move their children to another well performing school (public).

"In some of my posts I've mentioned that I think that the right has been very successful at co-opting the language"

This isn't endemic of just the right. It can be found by people of all political backgrounds.

"I was commenting less on the program...and more on his failure to properly fund that and real educational programs."

Yes, that is a problem, too. But even with appropriate funding, NCLB is flawed.

Bob S.

[krcNY]

quote:

Originally posted by Jon-Marc:
krcNY,

When my daughters were in high school they got mostly A's and even some A pluses. They did very well when they were in school, but they skipped a lot, and they both quit school and eventually ended up getting their GED's. They were both very bright, but they just didn't care.

Believe it or not....Our kids love school.