Newsday wonders whether the high-stakes exams for NYC's third-graders are working:
Nearing the end of a 45-minute intervention session in PS 100 in Queens, Amy Strauss looked into the faces of six third-grade and fourth-grade boys...The children, using a dozen block letters, had been asked to form three-letter words on their white magnetic journals.
"'Pat.' The next word is 'pat,'" the teacher said slowly. "P ... A ... T." Choosing from a selection of nine consonants and three vowels, five of the boys spelled the word correctly. The sixth boy spelled "p-i-t."
"OK, let's tap it out," Strauss said, holding up her fingers so that all the boys could see and rhythmically touching fingers to thumb in succession. "P ... A ... T."
The boy who had misspelled the word, mumbling to himself and following Strauss' example by tapping his own fingers, removed the "i" and inserted the "a" block in its place. "Very good, everyone," Strauss told the group approvingly.
Remember, these are third-graders, who aren't being asked to write out letters, or even know how words are spelled without being told. They're being asked to identify letters of the alphabet from a reduced set of block letters. Is there really any question about whether a kid who has trouble with this should be promoted to fourth grade?
The intervention sessions, held during the school day as part of the students' regular curriculum, are another crucial part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's efforts to end so-called "social promotion," to keep failing students from being passed to higher grades.
It's not "so-called" social promotion. When failing students are promoted, it is social promotion.
Citywide, more than 3,600 third-graders were held back -- or "retained," in the Department of Education's words -- after posting Level 1 scores on a city standardized test in reading and math. Level 1 is the lowest of four levels on the test. Students who posted the low scores on the test last spring were required to attend six weeks of summer school and make a higher grade upon retaking the test to go on to fourth grade. In a small number of cases, students who had low scores successfully appealed and were allowed to advance...
City officials have touted the social-promotion policy, which caused an uproar among parents and education advocates for months last year, as a success. This year, the city has expanded the policy to fifth-graders and is offering intervention programs to struggling students on Saturdays.
Third-graders who were held back, those who barely made it into fourth grade and those who were promoted through the appeals process can qualify for help such as that given by Strauss...
Many education experts, however, say the jury remains out on the intervention programs until the citywide standardized exams are given to third-graders in the spring...Some third-grade teachers have had mixed feelings about the intervention programs, saying whatever improvement a student who is getting extra help shows is countered by the chaos of being moved around too much during school hours. One teacher, who asked not to be identified, said he found the interventions disruptive because, among other reasons, the push-in programs took away from his lesson.
I agree that the jury is still out until the test scores come in - even if the idea of intervention sounds good to us, that doesn't mean that what's being taught is effective. However, I think it's absurd to say that, if the intervention work is useful, it's negated by being moved around a great deal. And if the push-in programs take time away from lessons that aren't working, as evidenced by test scores, I don't see where that's a bad thing. Teachers should be kept more informed about how the intervention programs work, for sure, but if classroom lessons aren't working, there's no reason not to try something else.
Posted by kswygert at November 14, 2004 02:18 PM