Just wanted to let you know I'm still alive, and not to be alarmed by the lack of posts on the site. I've been at work, oh, 11 hours already today, and haven't quite finished up. Not a lot of time to blog, there is.
Also, don't be alarmed by the sudden misfunctions of the comments, either. Right now, when I barely have time to link to the briefest of Fark articles, I've been getting hammered by the nastiest, vilest spammers possible, to the tune of 750+ spammed comments a day. The URLs and keywords keep shifting and permutating through various spellings of gross and illegal acts, so it would take constant vigilance to keep MT Blacklist on top of it. And I don't have that right now.
So, much as I love to read the comments and the interplay amongst my visitors, I've had to briefly disable comment functionality (it will appear to you like the comments, and comment functionality, are still there, but if you try to click on the comments link, you'll get an error). Even if I hadn't thought this was the best thing to do, this email from my hosting company would have spurred me to action:
Your site was under attack by numerous "spammers" who left links to porn sites in the comments they left on your blog...There were so many that it increased the load on the server to an unacceptable level. You should consider upgrading to the latest version of Moveable Type, which prevents this kind of spamming.
So I'll upgrade. And hopefully will have comments back someday. And if you have something you really want to say, and want everyone to know, email me, and I'll attach it as an update on the end of the post in question (a la Instapundit).
Boy, being a valedictorian is a much more exciting position than it used to be. You'd think it would be unheard of for a valedictorian to be escorted from her school building and denied her diploma, but it has happened, because Ms. Tiffany Schley, valedictorian of Brooklyn's High School of Legal Studies, pushed the envelope with her graduation speech:
A top student who's going to Smith College on a full scholarship this fall, Schley was brutally honest about the High School of Legal Studies during Thursday's graduation ceremonies in Bushwick.
Among her gripes: The school has had four principals in four years, overcrowded classes, a shortage of textbooks and other basic materials, unqualified teachers, unstable staffing and uncaring administrators who refused to meet with students to discuss the school's problems.
"They always want to keep the problems hush-hush, but what goes on in this school is real," said Tiffany, who was also the editor of the school newspaper, yearbook chairwoman and a member of the student council.
One teacher who attended the graduation said the audience was shocked by the speech. "The administration was very nervous, but the students were definitely in support of her," the teacher said.
When Schley came to school yesterday to pick up her diploma with the rest of her classmates, she and her mother were told they had been disrespectful and were escorted out of the building.
Some teachers support Schley's speech, others think the punishment (holding her diploma hostage until she apologizes) is appropriate. Doesn't sound like Ms. Schley is going to back down (and somehow I doubt Smith will be nervous about admitting such an outspoken young woman, diploma or no diploma).
And I love this comment from Fark on the story:
Oh, and if I were this girl [being forced to apologize], I'd paraphrase the "I'm sorry" speech from Babylon 5.
"I apologize. I'm .. sorry. I'm sorry we had to defend ourselves against an unwarranted attack. I'm sorry that your crew was *stupid* enough to fire on a station filled with a quarter million civilians, including your own people. And I'm sorry I waited as long as I did, before I blew them all straight to hell."
It's still work=insane, me=slammed around here. I'll be in meetings all day today and tomorrow. This weekend, I may be drinking heavily. Caveat emptor on any postings from Saturday, in other words.
But I do have a few quick things to put up..
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A Man Bites Dog story: An African American mother is fighting to rescind a rule that prevents her child from being given an IQ test. The rule follows from a a 1979 case in which "a judge decided IQ tests could not be used to determine children’s placement in special education classes in California," and the mother in question, Ms. Lewis, believes the assumption behind this is that all black children are dumb:
The ruling sought to address the overabundance of African-American students who were placed in special education classes after performing poorly on the IQ test, Lewis said.
Lewis doesn't deny that the test may have been discriminatory toward African-American children in the past. She's just convinced that the educational playing field is more level today.
"This is closet racism within the school district and the courts," she said. "Basically they're saying if you're black, you're dumb."
Others are urging Ms. Lewis not to open the door for minority kids to take such a "racially biased" test, thus reaffirming her assertion that a whole lot of people out there think all African American kids are too dumb to take IQ tests. She's right to call this "racism."
(Thanks to Devoted Reader Linda S. for the story.)
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THIS is why we need a sounder math curriculum in schools:
Confused about how to divide "kilos" of cocaine into ounces for sale, two teens from a Saanich private school turned to their math teacher for help, provincial court heard Monday.
An 18-year-old woman testified that a classmate -- when they were both Grade 11 students at St. Margaret's School for girls -- returned from the Thanksgiving holiday with a large quantity of cocaine which she intended to sell. But the two girls, who cannot be named because they were under age 18 at the time of the alleged incident, were unsure of its value since neither knew how many ounces there are in a kilogram.
"She asked me and I didn't know. We were in math class so the teacher would know. So I asked," said the testifying student.
The other student, now 18, is on trial in B.C. provincial court for possession of a narcotic for the purpose of trafficking.
It's sad to see a promising enteprenurial career stalled by a inadequate math education, isn't it?
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She could have gotten 15 days in jail, but the cheatin' teacher from South Carolina chose the $800 fine:
A Columbia woman is the first teacher to be convicted of helping students cheat on the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, the state’s high-stakes standardized test...Deborah Primus, 32, a math teacher at Southeast Middle School in Richland 1, pleaded guilty to violating mandatory test security Tuesday, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 90 days in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
Circuit Judge Ernest Kinard Jr. offered Primus a choice of 15 days in jail or an $800 fine. Primus, who has been teaching for more than 10 years — first in Orangeburg 5, then in Richland 1 — chose the fine.
A state Department of Education committee will review the case and may decide to suspend or revoke her teaching license.
The "pressure" of testing is cited as a possible cause for her behavior. Here's a tip - if you can't stand the heat, get the hell out of the kitchen.
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Students who rank low in good high schools are catching a break, as colleges are relying on such rankings less and less.
According to a survey by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, colleges and universities across the country are paying less attention to rank and placing more emphasis on good grades, application essays and standardized test scores, such as the SAT and ACT.
Among the 595 schools polled last year, 33 percent reported that class rank is of "considerable importance," down from 42 percent in 1993. At the same time, 61 percent said standardized test scores were an important factor in admitting students, up from 46 percent a decade ago. And 54 percent of schools surveyed said grades were a key factor, up from 39 percent in 1993.
"Finishing first or fifth at your high school doesn't tell a college as much about you as your standardized test scores or the strength of your curriculum because that they can compare to students at other schools," said David Hawkins, director of public policy for Alexandria, Va.-based National Association for College Admission Counseling.
In other words, if you're in the bottom half of a great (and competitive) school, and you have good grades and high SAT scores, your low ranking won't hurt you as much. Which is as it should be.
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Finally, here's an advice column for worried parents whose kids get straight A's but rock-bottom scores on standardized tests. The advice? Hey, lighten up! - the teacher's grades must be the more accurate assessment!
Q: My daughter's final report card puzzles me. She is a fifth-grader and received all A's this year. However, she had very low scores in math, social studies and spelling on a standardized achievement test given to her class. I am thinking that maybe her teacher was just handing out A's. How concerned should I be about the discrepancies between my child's report-card grades and her achievement-test scores?
A: To put your mind at rest that the teacher was not handing out too many A grades, consider your daughter's past grades on report cards. If she has been an A student in earlier grades, you should expect this pattern to continue...
Typically, teachers' grades give a good picture of how children are doing in school, because the teachers observe how the children are doing every day on a wide range of tasks. On the other hand, standardized tests are a one-time reading of students' abilities. One of the problems with these tests is that many students are not good test-takers. Others can get low scores because they were sick, did not try to do their best, or had some test anxiety. Also, standardized tests are considered to be especially unreliable in assessing the achievement of students of very high and very low ability.
Not necessarily - and they're certainly not "unreliable" to the point where a true A student will be bombing them. And while we're talking about "reliability," standardized exams are almost always more reliable than teacher grades, which can include inflation due to the teacher's assessment of "effort" rather than achievement.
When there is a discrepancy between a child's grades and standardized-test scores, there is always the possibility that the material on the test has not been covered adequately in the classroom. In this case, most of the other students in a class will also have low scores. Why don't you try to talk to a school counselor or psychometrist before school begins again to learn more about what your child's low standardized-test scores probably mean and how they can be improved?
It's "psychometrician," not "psychometrist." Why shouldn't the parent be urged to confront the teacher with the scores, rather than a counselor? And while parents should indeed find out as much as possible about the tests, they shouldn't start with the assumption that the test scores are more likely to be inaccurate.
Sorry I haven't had much time to post lately; work has been slamming me. Let's see, I've already put in 26 hours of work this week, and it's only....6 am on Wednesday morning. Eek.
However, I just have to share this reader email with you. A lot of the reader emails I get are from parents and teachers who want to vent; I understand why this is the case, and I'm always happy to be there as a shoulder to cry on. But I love to hear the success stories, too, and this particular email (which I know to be absolutely true, because I know the writer personally and heard a lot of details as they were ongoing) put a smile on my face like nothing you've ever seen.
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Around Thanksgiving this school year I was hired to replace a teacher who was a nice guy, but wasn't exactly teaching much. I came in with a full head of steam and high standards for both academics and behavior, and immediately began the hard work of getting these kids back on track.
Unfortunately, there is a very real phenomenon that sometimes occurs when one teacher is fired: the students may work on the hasty exit of the next teacher, especially if that teacher attempts to bring order to chaos.
As the months went by, I tried to make the best of the situation, and was making some progress with most of my classes. Alas, about mid-year, a sizable cadre of students had had enough, and the full-scale revolt began. They began plotting very conscientiously to get me fired, and spared no expense in their efforts.
Their plan was two-fold: first of all, to not cooperate with me in any way, shape, or form, most notably by not paying attention in class, not doing homework, not studying, and in a number of cases simply refusing to take quizzes (after glancing around the room to see who was 'in' on the boycott). This leads to the second part of their plan, which was to besiege the principal with complaints. They complained that I wasn't teaching them anything, that I wasn't answering questions, and that I treated them like they were retarded.
All this while (also because I was a new teacher in the school), the principal and vice principal made frequent unannounced visits to my classroom, sometimes sitting in, sometimes standing outside my door out of sight but within earshot. In all of these instances I was caught red-handed actually teaching my classes, and in one instance the principal remarked that mine was the best classroom observation he'd seen all week.
So much for the students' plan.
I tried to have a heart-to-heart with the rebellious students, explaining patiently that I understood what they were trying to do, but that their strategy (doing everything they could to fail my class) was a poor one: even if they succeeded in getting me fired, they'd still be responsible for knowing the material, either in their exams, or in future years' classes.
I wasn't successful in swaying a good portion of my students, who kept up the offensive to the end of the year. This caused the bell-shaped curve of my students' grades for the year to be centered over 'D' (as in "Darn close to failing"). Can't say I didn't warn them.
As for my firing? Well, the administrators took a different approach.
They gave me a promotion, naming me Department Chairman for the coming school year (along with a raise).
Seems my Karma ran over their Dogma.
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Yay! *does cartwheel*
Bryan Henderson, a student at Princeton High School, decided he was fed up with the constant stream of left-wing propaganda from his teachers. So he decided to shake things up a bit, and shake them up he did. Read his tale here.
Operation Tiger Claw, as his effort became known, got quite a bit of attention. It's refreshing to see a student so familiar with the Bill of Rights and court rulings on free speech. I also think the operation was in part a success, because it appears that some students may have learned that merely screaming "racist!" at anyone or anything they disagree with is a pretty immature and ineffective way to argue (although the one parent mentioned in the article seems oblivious to that reality).
Kudos to Brian for his efforts. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about him in the future. And I ask you - what have public schools become, when even the top schools like Princeton inspire such mindless rhetoric ("Anyone who wants to end Arab occupation is racist!") in many students, and such determined revolutionary spirit in the rest. Brian keeps a pocket copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with him at all times. I didn't feel the need to do that when I was in high school, and it's disturbing to realize that students need that protection now.
President Announces Controversial New Educational Initiative
LOS ANGELES (APUPI) June 20, 2004
Standing in front of the Los Angeles Times building on Spring Street and surrounded by aides, President Bush put forth a new and long-overdue proposal today, to the cheers of thousands of long-suffering readers of that paper, to start to repair the tragic situation with the American journalism system. He called it "No Reporter Left Behind."
"For too many years have we seen the sad evidence accumulating that our nation's media outlets and journalism schools simply aren't achieving what they must for our nation to maintain its first-place ranking in freedom of speech and a properly informed public," he declared. "Compared to journalists of a few decades ago, today's reporters show an increasing inability to comprehend simple English or basic statistics, to exercise logic, or to even recognize that they're Americans."
"Now, many accuse the media of bias against my administration, but I don't believe that. I'm here to change the tone in Washington and the nation, and I refuse to engage in such accusations. I'm sure that journalists are well meaning. As a compassionate conservative, it's clear to me that they simply haven't been given the education and training that they so desperately need, and we need to help them and their hardworking editors."
The president went on to illustrate the growing problem.
"Certainly, we're all familiar with the examples of journalistic incompetence that seem to be increasing almost daily."
The satire then goes on to list example of reporters who missed the boat on war-related news, but it could just as easily list the number of reporters who don't understand tests yet pontificate on them, who rely on tearjerking anecdotes and unnamed critics for their anti-testing articles, who give public school defenders lots of ink yet leave little room for those who believe the schools should be reformed/abolished, and who routinely miss the opportunity to define crucial testing terms (like "impact," "bias," and "norm-referenced") in their zeal to print the "controversial" aspects of testing.
Continuing on in this vein, doesn't this mean that homeschooling is the analogy to blogging? Let's see, both are becoming extremely popular with "ordinary" people who want to bypass the power structure, in order to impart truth rather than ideology...yep, I'd say they're analogous. And the powers-that-be who believe bloggers are "irresponsible" and "inaccurate" (due to a lack of editorial bureaucracy) are probably the same who spread the word that homeschoolers are "backwards" and "uneducated" people who do a poor job with their kids (due to a lack of educational bureaucracy).
Got more reader mail than usual lately, and I thought all my Devoted Readers might be interested in some of it.
Devoted Reader Ed N. notes that critics of Virginia's SOLs will have to find something else to carp about, now that only 74 students in Hampton Roads were denied diplomas due to a failing score on the exam. Ed claims the area contains urban and suburban kids. Note that in some districts, students can take the tests "indefinitely," which may lead to some wobbly, grey-haired graduates in years to come.
Devoted Reader Justine is in high dudgeon after a discussion in her AP History class turned ugly. It seems Justine and her friend Kelly tried to argue against AA, and they even mentioned SAT scores. Kelly decompresses with a rant here. All I can say is, man, if I had had a blog in high school, certain "popular" kids would still feel their ears burning from my invective.
Devoted Reader Kevin S., who is apparently has nothing better to do with his time than send me each and every education-related article from Louisiana - Kev, you know I love you - sends along yet another article in which the PRAXIS is debated and degraded by educators. The article is relatively balanced, though, and the real sticking point seems to be that teachers must be judged competent in each subject area they teach (if it's considered a core skill).
The article concludes with the tale of this kindergarten teacher; her story is intended to be sympathetic, I'm sure, but it doesn't quite come off that way:
Kelly, the teacher at Brusly Elementary, said she has earned a bachelor's degree in elementary education, a master's degree in education, and has completed more than 30 hours of college course work beyond her master's degree. Kelly said she also is certified in kindergarten and early childhood education and is certified in supervision and administration.
Still, she does not meet the definition of "highly qualified," and received a letter from West Baton Rouge Parish school officials telling her so.
"We're doing the work. We're bringing the children where they need to be, and we're constantly bashed," Kelly said in an interview at the school with several other faculty members.
Results from the National Teacher Exam would have helped in Kelly's situation, she said.
"I may have taken it and don't even remember it," she said.
Uh-huh. She doesn't remember? And she's contesting this entirely on principle, too, since kindergarten teachers are exempt from the requirements of the legislation.
Finally, Devoted Reader Henry C. submits the perfect example of a short-and-sweet letter of praise:
I recently came across your web site, and just wanted to let you know that I check it out every day now. Keep up the good work.
If you ever want to email me but aren't sure what to say, just say what Henry said.
Administrators at some South Carolina schools won't waste this summer at the beach; they're already planning the upcoming school year, with an eye towards closing the racial achievement gap, which continues to widen in the state:
It's summertime at South Elementary School. The halls are silent and empty. But behind closed doors, teachers, maintenance workers and school secretaries are busy, setting up classrooms and thinking about the coming year weeks before school begins in August...
South Elementary is one of 107 schools in South Carolina that are "closing the gap" between the test scores of black and white students and the haves and have-nots, according to a study released Thursday by the state agency that oversees the implementation of education legislation. The Education Oversight Committee report said black students and students who receive free and reduced-price lunches are likely to fall farther behind their peers in math and reading in the next 10 years unless "dramatic" corrective action is taken...
Some of the report's recommendations include increasing instruction time for students who are at risk of falling behind, developing academic assistance plans for each child and improving programs for 4-year-olds to prepare them for school.
At some SC schools, students in the disadvantaged categories perform well on standardized tests, and other school hope to follow their leads. More on some of the successful schools here:
The biggest local winner was Stono Park Elementary in West Ashley, which has a school population that is 84 percent black.
It posted high levels of performance across grade levels and subjects for both black and poor students.
"It is our passion that our kids will do well," said Principal Stephanie Strous, one of three principals statewide selected to speak to EOC members Thursday. "All kids can achieve. As principal, it is my goal to prove it."
She summed up her philosophy in two words: "We believe." Order and structure are also important, she said. "These seven (school) hours, we control. We don't wring our hands. We make use of it."
Don Sorensen's weekly cheating new round-up is available here. He very graciously links to N2P - thanks!
I just have to comment on a couple of the stories he uncovered.
In Singapore, they take test security very seriously, it seems. Jail sentences for leaking test items are rare here in the US, but anyone who might be thinking of sneaking away with a test booklet or two should know that those crimes are often vigorously prosecuted as theft (of copyrighted material). The "amount" that is declared stolen is often calculated as the cost of development of every now-exposed and unusable item, and this value can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This FCAT cheating story broke when I was on vacation. The sticking point seems to be, as on the SAT, identical patterns of wrong answers. Students are being allowed retakes in June.
Finally, there are the cellphone cheaters. I've posted about this before. There's no reason on earth to allow students to have cellphones in class during exams, and it's hard to believe that teachers are paying so little attention that students have been able to cheat in this fashion. (Update: Devoted Reader Chris C points out that some schools haven't been ignoring the problem at all, and are in fact actively combating it.)
Thanks to Don for all these links. I plan to make my commentary on his weekly cheating roundup a regular feature here on N2P.
Work pressures have intensified, so I'll be off the grid until tomorrow afternoon or so. Until then, enjoy the tour of N2P's "Believe It Or Not!" educational museum.
Wonder at the naivete exhibited by this editorialist, who insists that all standardized tests are useless because early psychometricians were eugenicists who created tests that ignored "cultural and background differences" and "social or economic opportunity." He reports this with breathless spite, not realizing that we all know the background story, we all know eugenics hasn't been part of psychometrics for 50 years, we all know that testing now strives to be as culture-free as possible, and so on.
Gaze in mystery at the school districts that have hysterics over the idea of chaperones sipping one alcoholic drink while at dinner with a school group. God forbid that even responsible adults of legal age should be allowed one beer if any students are around.
Marvel at the teacher who thinks that wearing left-wing t-shirts every day to class is the appropriate way to get kids "thinking" about the issues.
Thrill to the efforts of this man's attempts to get rid of Colorado's state standardized exam. He considers the requirement that students meet state standards on reading, math, writing and science to be a focus on "superficial values." His suggested replacements are tests that differ by location (thus removing any basis for comparison) or letting educators judge whether students are proficient (thus introducing substantial bias and unreliability into the measures).
And finally, cheer for the kid who got trampled going for that Texas Rangers foul ball. He has now been rewarded many times over, and has hopefully learned the lesson that Americans do indeed have a sense of justice and fair play.
Update: Independent George complains, "What, no midgets or two-headed animals? What kind of joint is this?"
Never say I don't deliver. And here's another marvel, because I know some people who are too clueless to figure out how these doors work.
You say you want to know what the passing score is on Georgia's high-stakes reading exam for third-graders? Well, nyah-nyah, they're not going to tell you:
For weeks, the state Department of Education has refused to say how many questions Georgia's third-graders needed to answer correctly in order to pass a high-stakes reading test required for promotion to the fourth grade. Without knowing where the state set the standard, many observers say it is unclear what Georgia's surprisingly good performance on the test means.
Georgia officials were overjoyed that 91 percent of the state's 115,000 third-graders passed the proficiency exam. The state had expected as many as 26,000 students to fail the test, which was given last spring...
State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox says the state did not manipulate the test to improve performance. The cut score — the number of correct answers a student must have in order to pass — was the same this year as in 2002, the last time the third-grade reading test was given, she said.
Yes, but while that tells us the standard wasn't lowered from 2002, that still doesn't tell us what it is. Keeping the cutscore in place doesn't guarantee that everyone actually improved, because the items could have gotten easier.
Standardized tests are not graded the same as classroom tests, which typically have a scale of 100 with a score of 70 being the minimum required to pass. Tests like the state's curriculum exam have determined cut scores based on how much a group of educators decides students need to know in order to prove they have mastered the subject.
On Gwinnett County's standardized Gateway exam, used for promotion in grades four and seven, a passing score is less than 50 percent of correct answers. The cut score is low because the questions are difficult, said Linda Mitchell, head of testing in Gwinnett.
It's quite possible that there's no reason for the hush-hush other than to satisfy the lawyers. I'm not going to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon. But knowing the placement of the cutscore does allow for more argument about how useful the test is, so naturally some have jumped to the conclusion that the DOE wants to forstall those conversations.
Say it's revealed that the cutscore is 40% of the items. This could mean the items were very difficult, or it could mean the cutscore is so low that almost anyone can pass. Since everyone's seen the test, the public has a shot at gauging the difficulty of the test, and can use the cutscore knowledge to get an estimate of what "proficient" really means. Texas reveals their cutscore, and it isn't any sort of infringement on copyrights or test security to do so.
Rattlesnakes don't hunt people down indoors, but drunken asshats with pet rattlesnakes do:
Meet Rodger Hunter. Monday night, the Idaho Falls man, 28, went to his local pub--accompanied by his mother--to knock back a few. But after a tiff with mom Sheila, 47, Hunter left Chic's in a huff. This is when things got screwy. Rodger returned an hour later carrying his pet rattlesnake, which Hunter tossed into the crowded watering hole.
The snake has been confiscated. I hope it is returned to the wild, where it will enjoy a substantially more productive life than the boneheaded Mr. Hunter.
The Wilmington News-Journal (Delaware) suggests a bunch of boneheaded solutions to the racial achievement gap in schools. These solutions are based on the ideas of researchers and authors Richard Kahlenberg and Richard Rothstein; ideas that, as Dave Huber notes, don't seem to be based on reality in general, much less the reality of the Delaware school system.
Sample:
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WNJ: Rothstein said he doubted busing to integrate by income would be any more welcome in America than busing based on racial balancing. Rothstein said he believes a campaign to produce housing integrated by income is the better strategy.
Dave: A "campaign to produce housing integrated by income"? Sheesh...I suppose Rothstein might mean something like putting Section 8 housing in middle (or upper) class neighborhoods to achieve this integration. The chances, however, of such a move actually being implemented are slim...the plain, no-nonsense fact of the matter is that it is quite rational not to want Section 8 housing in a well-established "nice" neighborhood. An uncomfortable fact is that since Section 8 housing owners are greatly subsidized, they tend not to put as much upkeep into the maintenance of their homes. So, ask yourself a question: If you live in a nice neighborhood where homeowners take a lot of pride in their properties' appearance, would you want an influx of "homeowners" who couldn't care less? Of course not.
WNJ: Parental involvement is one of the factors Kahlenberg has used to show how schools heavy with low-income children cease to be equal to suburban schools. "Middle-class parents are four times more likely to be active in the PTA than low-income parents," he said. "In no way do I mean to be criticizing the low-income parents, because if you're working two or three jobs, you may not have time for the PTA."
Dave: Isn't that nice of him? He doesn't "mean to be criticizing." How "sensitive." But maybe people should be criticizing of [some of] these parents. Does Kahlenberg wonder, if these parents don't have time to look after their childrens' schooling, just why they had kids in the first place? I'm sure he probably does, but voicing such queries is "insensitive." No such sensitivity here, sorry. My wife and I planned out having our daughter to the Nth degree. Heck, silly me, I actually thought that was what we were supposed to do! If I was "poor," frankly, either I wouldn't have had children, or, I would have worked it out so that I could be involved in their education -- their lives. Isn't this just common sense, folks?
WNJ: As Rothstein's book shows, low-income students, for instance, are far more likely to suffer vision, hearing and dental problems, along with such afflictions as lead poisoning, all of which can afflict learning. Schools cannot solve the problems of poverty, he said; society ought to do that.
Dave: Ah! Here we have it, folks. "Society ought to do that." Here's a fresh idea -- how about, "Parents ought to do that"? Why do I have to be responsible for the irresponsibility of other parents?
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Dave's on the ball today.
Alabama plans to transform low-performing schools by giving cash bonuses to good teachers who transfer there. The teacher's union, predictably, is not amused:
The Mobile County school system is putting its plan to "transform" five low-performing schools on television sets throughout the area to win public support for the controversial effort...[the TV spots] tell viewers about the purported benefits of the plan, which uses cash bonuses to attract better teachers and gives each school millions of dollars to improve.
The plan has drawn ire from representatives of the local teachers union who have said that by restaffing the schools, the system is unfairly blaming teachers for the failures.
Let me get this straight. Teachers are important people and good teachers can have a profound impact on students. Why is the union so unwilling to recognize that bad teachers can indeed be part of the cause of a failing school? Getting good teachers in the door won't fix every problem, but it certainly won't hurt, and I believe the union's insistence that teacher quality has nothing to do with school quality is bizarre, not to mention self-defeating.
The students, on the other hand, get it:
"I'm excited about it, because I'm concerned about my future," Mobile County Training School student Lashandria Hill says of the transformation plan during the longer public service announcement.
"We're ready to be better," says Mae Eanes Middle School student Rebecca Harris.
"We're all equal, and we all deserve an education," adds Mae Eanes Middle School student Marquita Peters
I meant to post this article about the appalling ease of exit exams yesterday, but it didn't get published until today. And, right on the heels of research suggesting that exit exams are far too easy for today's high schoolers comes this discussion of Virginia's SOL, in which testing opponents insist that the test "makes" students drop out:
Of the more than 98,000 students who began their freshman year in Virginia's high school Class of 2004 -- the first required to pass state Standards of Learning exams to graduate -- fewer than 70,000 are expected to receive their diplomas this month. A child-advocacy group charged yesterday that the exams are partly to blame for the gap.
JustChildren, an arm of the Charlottesville-based Legal Aid Justice Center, held a news conference in Richmond to ask state educators to investigate graduation rates and their connection to the SOL exams. "We support high standards, but we do not support punishing children," said Debra Grant, a Virginia Beach mother of three who spoke at the conference.
Oh, I see. JustChildren supports high standards, but doesn't support actually holding any of these "children" to those standards. If flunking students who don't pass the test is "punishing children," in what way can JustChildren be considered to "support" the standards at all?
Andy Block, legal director for JustChildren, said he suspects that the pressure of the tests discourages students and prompts them to drop out. "Given the significant percentage of students who end up without diplomas, we hope that figuring out why this is going on becomes an urgent priority," he said.
I've yet to see one person making this argument deal with the issue of grades and class exams. Somehow, exams and homework pressures for six classes a semester is acceptable, and yet it's this one standardized test, which probably only lasts a couple of hours, that will force a student to choose a GED over a diploma? Does that make sense to anyone?
And of course there's the issue of how exactly to measure dropouts. Some voices of reason point out that the existing data do not support the claims of organizations like JustChildren:
State education officials said a study has been commissioned, but they said that until individual students can be tracked more accurately, it is difficult to know whether students drop out, move out of state or transfer to private schools.
When the testing regime began in 1998, passing rates were low, and educators feared that thousands of seniors would be at risk of not graduating this year, when the results would officially begin to count toward their diplomas. Based on the survey, they now believe that the percentage of seniors who fail to graduate with their class will be similar to that of past years...
Lisa Abrams, a Boston College research associate who has examined similar data for all 50 states, said calculating graduation rates starting with freshman year is more comprehensive. Otherwise, she said, "you're not factoring in students who have left school before 12th grade. It doesn't give you as much information about the capacity of schools in the state to graduate students in four years."
By that measure, Abrams's study found that Virginia ranked better than 36 states in recent years.
(Thanks to Devoted Reader Jeff B. for the link.)
In Florida, students at failing high schools have the option to be bussed elsewhere - but what happens when all the surrounding high schools don't make the grade, either?
For parents of students at Orange's three failing schools, the F's mean their kids could be bused to better schools -- those rated at least a C. But with four more of Orange's 17 high schools dropping from C to D, the choices are becoming more limited.
A school advisory co-chairman had some strong words about those kids who dared to flee sinking ships:
At Oak Ridge, School Advisory Council co-chairman Cheryl Leonard said her school has been ruined by an exodus of strong students who fled for magnet programs elsewhere in the county.
"Oak Ridge has been absolutely raped of its best students," said the Oak Ridge alum and mother of an incoming senior. "I want to cry when I think about the students who have left either because of magnets or because their parents have lied about their address."
Bet those parents aren't crying. They got their kids out of failing schools and into good ones. Why should they have an obligation to stay behind? The problems in Florida's education system start early, and while the focus has been on elementary school students, the benefits have not yet begun to show for the later grades:
School officials struggled Tuesday to explain what caused the poor showing at many high schools after years of taking standardized tests known as FCATs.
Many students arrive at high school unable to do ninth-grade-level work, state education officials said. The schools inherit students promoted to the next grade even though they never mastered essential skills, said Jim Warford, chancellor of primary and secondary education in Florida.
The WaPo has a long and interesting article on the FCAT, which states that Florida's own improvement programs aren't meshing with NCLB:
In 1998, when Republican Jeb Bush, the president's brother, first ran for governor, 48 percent of Florida's students were dropping out before getting a high school diploma...Jeb Bush made education one of the most prominent issues of his campaign, promising to bring accountability and improvements to a system in which many Floridians had lost faith...
The new education plan, dubbed A+, placed strong emphasis on a new statewide student-testing program. At the same time, then Texas Gov. George W. Bush pushed through a similar program in his state. It laid the foundation for the No Child Left Behind federal education reforms he touted during the 2000 campaign and eventually pushed through Congress.
Those two programs -- one federal and one state -- are on a collision course this summer. That's when new test results could show that many of state's schools pass the Florida A+ standards while failing to show sufficient improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind rules. Failing to make progress on the federal standards would require the state to let the parents of students in failing schools transfer their children to better-performing alternatives.
We're not talking about a slight disconnect here. 94% of Florida's schools passed the Florida standard, while only 13% passed the NCLB standards. How could this be?
The goal of NCLB is to raise reading and math proficiency to 100 percent for all students in the country by 2014. Unlike the A+ plan, which grades schools on the aggregate scores of all their students, NCLB measures the performance of subgroups of students in reading and math and requires all groups -- defined by racial, ethnic, income and other factors -- to keep improving until all groups reach the 100 percent goal. These different scoring techniques have given some schools passing grades under the state A+ plan but failing grades under NCLB.
The article does a nice job of outlining the political pressures that are affecting Florida's educational hurricane. Democrats vs. Republicans, accountability supporters vs. those who feel the FCAT is "biased," testing supporters vs. those who believe tests impeded "deep thinking," etc. It's all there. Just as Florida brought the world's attention to the problems with the voting process, Florida will be ground zero for some of the primary battles being fought over NCLB.
(Thanks to Devoted Reader Roy L. for the link)
Wonder how long until someone uses this as an excuse for why teenagers shouldn't be put in high-stakes academic situations?
Government researchers found in a recent study that the last areas of the brain to mature in humans appear to be those responsible for reasoning, problem-solving and other sophisticated functions. This doesn't happen until sometime between ages 18 and 21...
The new images [generated by the study] are important because "no one had actually shown that . . . simple areas would develop first and mature first, and complex areas would have to wait until simple areas mature," said lead study author Dr. Nitin Gogtay, a psychiatrist with the National Institute of Mental Health.
I have to admit, this does explain the lightbulb-going-off-above-the-head effect that hits most ex-party-animals in their mid-twenties, when they wonder how they could have been so insane as to do lots of drugs and unprotected sex when they were younger.
For some, though, that lightbulb never really appears, does it?
Texas' "10% solution," a response to a ban on race-based admissions policies, is coming under fire from parents who say their kids deserve more credit for making top scores in better schools:
Seven years ago, after a federal court outlawed the use of race in the admissions policies of the state's public universities, the Legislature came up with an answer: It passed a law guaranteeing admission to the top 10 percent of the graduating class from any public or private high school. After a few years of hard work, diversity was restored and other states, including California and Florida, adopted similar approaches. The law looked like a success.
But the 10 percent rule, which seemed to skirt the tricky issue of race so deftly, is coming under increasing attack these days as many wealthy parents complain that their children are not getting a fair shake...Parents whose children have been denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin, the crown jewel of Texas higher education, argue that some high schools are better than others, and that managing to stay in the top 25 percent at a demanding school should mean more than landing in the top 10 percent at a less rigorous one. The dispute shows how hard it is to come up with a system for doling out precious but scarce spots in elite universities without angering someone.
You betcha. It's a given that someone is going to complain; as one member of the UT community put it, "The only thing that would satisfy everyone is an open-door policy and an unlimited number of spaces." The usual class-based stereotypes are thrown around here; one Texas high school students insists this is all because "the rich people" don't want poor people to go to UT, thus missing the point entirely. The arguments about whether all kids who are in the top 10% rage back and forth, the position changing depending on what's used as a measure of good performance.
In an attempt to quell the complaints, and as a result of a recent Supreme Court ruling, Texas is now going back to race-based admissions, which I consider to be a step backwards. Texas A&M has a better system. They admit only half of their students using the 10% rule, but admit another 25% who are in the top half of their class and score higher than 1300 on the SAT, which allows those from demanding high schools to have a better shot.
Students in New York breathe a sigh of relief, as their missing SATs turn up in the possession of a man who inadvertently took them home with him.
The students, all from the over-achieving Ardsley public schools, were already freaking about having to retake:
Officials of the Ardsley public schools broke the bad news to 123 high school students on Thursday that the SAT exams they took on Saturday had disappeared from the district office. The answer sheets from the exam were in an eight-pound Federal Express envelope on a counter, awaiting pickup on Monday morning. But when the FedEx employee arrived at the office, no one could find it, said Richard E. Maurer, the superintendent of schools...
"Right now I'm very frustrated because I don't know how it left the building," Dr. Maurer said. "I'm very upset and I've apologized to the students and the parents." School officials contacted the Ardsley Police Department about the missing tests, but Dr. Maurer said he did not suspect any mischief...
Between class periods on Thursday, guidance counselors quietly summoned the students whose answer sheets had been lost to tell them about the disappearance. Among them was Derek Weingarten, a 17-year-old junior, who took the SAT I on Saturday, after having just taken it in May, scoring a respectable 1,230.
Mr. Weingarten said he wanted to raise his overall score on the June 5 exam so that he could have a carefree senior year. "I was hoping for a 1,300, and when I came out of the exam I felt I had reached my goal, if not more," he said. "For the test to be gone now is just very disappointing."
Guess what? Mr. Weingarten may have still have that carefree senior year, thanks to the fact that the absentminded SAT "thief" did the right thing and returned the still-sealed exams:
The SAT exams that mysteriously disappeared from the public schools here earlier this week were found on Friday morning when a man called the schools superintendent to say, a bit sheepishly, that he had inadvertently taken them home...
In a telephone interview, Dr. Maurer said the package was completely intact. He would not identify the man who mistakenly took the package, other than to say that he was not a resident of Ardsley. As the mistake was explained by Dr. Maurer, the man had gone to the school district offices on Monday to pick up some other materials, had put down his own papers on a secretary's desk and grabbed the eight-pound SAT package, which was awaiting pickup by FedEx, when he went to retrieve his papers. When the man learned from news reports that the exams were missing, he discovered that he had them.
The guy didn't notice he was carrying an extra eight pounds? Sheesh.
At 10:45 a.m., the high school principal, Dr. James Haubner, made an announcement over the public address system that the SAT's had been found - a piece of news that elicited loud cheers among students...
Tom Ewing, a spokesman for the Educational Testing Service in Lawrenceville, N.J., said that because of the prompt return of the package, there "shouldn't be any delay whatsoever" in grading the exams and reporting the scores.
I'm sure this is meant to be reassuring, but I find it disturbing:
Maryland high school students may not have too much trouble with standardized tests required for graduation starting with the class of 2009. A new study from a non-profit group shows that the tests are not overwhelming.
It says the material covered on the math exams is the equivalent to what students learn in seventh or eighth grade. The english exams are like another standardized test usually given to eighth and ninth graders.
Uh-huh. Remind me again what the point of this exit exam is? If it's supposed to signify that the student has mastered high-school-level material, it isn't. And think about what this means for those students who still flunk it. (Commenters on Joanne Jacobs' site certainly have thought about this.)
The study mentioned here was conducted by Achieve, Inc.; the entire study is available from their website. Maryland wasn't the only state involved; exit exams from Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas were examined as well. The conclusion sums it up well:
Achieve reached three conclusions: First, it is perfectly reasonable to expect high school graduates to pass these tests — they are not overly demanding. Second, these exams will need to be strengthened over time to better measure the knowledge and skills high school graduates need to succeed in the real world. Third, states should not rely exclusively on these tests to measure everything that matters in a young person's education. Over time, states will need to develop a more comprehensive set of measures beyond on-demand graduation tests.
Those comprehensive sets of measures used to be called "grades;" apparently those are too unreliable nowadays. And if these test have indeed been dumbed down this far, I agree that states shouldn't rely exclusively on them.
The NYT has more:
The study found that the tests measured very basic material and skills, insufficient for success in university courses or in jobs paying salaries higher than the poverty level, currently about $18,000 for a family of four...
Matthew Gandal, the executive vice president of [Achieve], noted that exit exams were frequently attacked as unfair. "We think it's the opposite," he said. "It's unfair not to expect students to learn what's on these tests. By the time they graduate, if they haven't learned what's on these tests, they'll be really unprepared, and by then it's too late. They won't be able to go to college or to get jobs with which they can support a family."
Amen. How nice to see someone cut through the bull about how the exit exams are the stumbling blocks. They're not. The tests aren't the barriers to achievement, but the skills - or lack thereof - behind the test scores are. Too bad the testing critics in the article, who huff about "one-size-fits-all" exams, don't get this. Apparently, to them it's perfectly fine to expect seniors to perform at an eighth-grade level, or below.
New Jersey is one state that aims to toughen their exams:
New Jersey's High School Proficiency Assessment was among six state tests reviewed by Achieve Inc...The study found the HSPA was among the strongest of the lot...
In all, the study found much of the knowledge and skills in the reviewed tests should be covered by the time a student reaches the end of middle school or ninth grade. For instance, most focused largely on basic math skills that didn't exceed a year of algebra or, in some cases, pre-algebra. New Jersey's was one of the few tests that asked students for any writing sample...
Released Wednesday, the study comes after New Jersey has taken several steps to toughen diploma requirements. State Education Commissioner William Librera and the state board of education have revised the high school course requirements and sought to add community service and career options in a student's senior year. Librera is now looking at ways to end the state's alternative high school test that allows students who fail a section of the HSPA to be tested in a less rigorous process that virtually fails no one.
Last year, more than 15 percent of graduates statewide went through the Special Review Assessment, and officials say the number could top 20 percent this year. In some urban districts, the SRA share is as high as 50 percent, and advocates of the alternative exam say it is needed because of what they call the rigor of the HSPA.
Emphasis mine. In some districts, 50% of students are slipping through a loophole that fails no one. And yet critics insist, in the face of evidence suggesting otherwise, that these tests are so demanding that hordes of students drop out in response.
My take on this? First, my assumptions are that exams that are this dumbed down help no one, loopholes that give anyone a diploma help no one, and no test in and of itself will improve the educational process. Also, it's a fact that testing critics will continue to cry "Unfair!" about any test, as evidenced by their yammering about eighth-grade standards for twelfth-grade students.
Given all this, following Achieve's recommendations and New Jersey's lead seems like the best plan - toughen up the curriculum, toughen up the exams, add additional assessments, and say "Too bad" to anyone who just doesn't cut it. We've reached a point where schools are afraid to deny any student a diploma, no matter how poorly that student performs. Unless schools are willing to stand up to the critics, who will raise Cain no matter how low the standards are, exit exams aren't going to be of much use in improving high school education.
On the heels of Philadelphia's crackdown on misbehaving students comes some good news - Philly's test scores are up:
The TerraNova test results, says school district CEO Paul Vallas, find that student scores continue to improve across the board:
"In eight of ten grades, we saw improvement in reading scores. In nine of ten grades we saw improvement in language arts scores. And in seven of nine grades we saw improvement in math scores.
"While we saw solid growth in our reading scores, the growth in math was very strong. And let me point out that the strongest growth was in the middle grades -- 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grades."
Another friendly reminder, folks: If you need information from me, please put your request into an email, and not into a comment. If it's on an old post, I may never see it, and it's much easier for me to reply to an email.
Also, spamming my comments sections in a request for information, or attempting to use the comments as a chat room, will get you banned. Don't force me to do that.
I finally got the chance to view this, which numerous people (including Devoted readers like Justine and Judith) sent along. South Park has yet to do an episode about standardized testing, but until then, this will do. Although I hate sites that play music when you open them, I have to admit to wondering how a snippet of Amy Winfrey's "Number 2 Pencil/You're my favorite friend" song could be used to enhance the N2P reading experience. Wonder if she'd let me use it if I link to her from my front page?
It seems one of my Devoted Readers is in the business of catching cheaters. Don Sorensen emailed me to let me know that he is a founder in a new company, Caveon Test Security. A bi-weekly newsletter called "Cheating in the News" is available to those in the testing and education industries. Archives may be found here. The June 4th archive alone contains seven articles, a few of which I might have missed, with my searches because they focus on certification exams. Dan mentioned that he'd like to point some readers my way, so I thought I'd do the same. Click here to read everything in my archive that's in the "Cheaters" category (although you'll need to enter the keyword "cheat" in my search engine to get the stuff that was written before May of 03).
I thought this story from Dan's June 4th archives was particularly compelling. It's about a student, Alexis Martin, who blew off her first SAT and then aced the second one, only to have ETS accuse her of cheating.
Read the whole thing. It seems to be, at first, a typical tearjerking tale about an innocent student vs. evil ETS, but then a real psychometrician got involved. He didn't take sides, but instead analyzed the data, and concluded (tactfully) that there is solid evidence to suggest that the "innocent" student may not be. An equally-tactful opposition to ETS's policies, though, is provided by a (named) member of the test prep community; nice to see that the typical "critics say" method wasn't resorted to here.
What's also interesting is that the student admits to one boneheaded action that, while it wasn't cheating, didn't help her case. She figured out during the test which SAT section was the variable one and blew it off, not realizing that if she were ever accused (and she was) of copying off a seatmate, it was her performance on this variable section (the only section differing from her seatmate's) that would suggest the true measure of her skill. This article is definitely impressive in the amount of solid information (lots) it presents vs. unsupported anti-testing cliches (none).
The tale ends with another tearjerker of a comment, of course - got to push the human interest side to keep the readers - but the article lays the framework well enough that a sympathetic yet logical reader can understand why the cheating detection system is not perfect, and why it is sometimes necessary to "catch" the innocent and "jeopardize a child for improving her score" in order to make sure that the real cheaters don't slip through the net.
The cover of the local tab, the Philadelphia Daily News, blares, "Schools' Rules - Time to Get Serious". It should come as no surprise to anyone that order and discipline are thorny issues in Philly's overburdened and underperforming public schools, but the district insists that it's going to start cracking down:
TRASH TALK. Extra-baggy clothes. Beeping cell phones and pagers. Arriving fashionably late for class.
These aren't capital crimes, Philadelphia school officials acknowledge.
But they are the type of infractions that often lead to big problems, such as vandalism, fighting and wholesale disrespect of teachers and students. To stomp out this kind of nuisance behavior, the School District of Philadelphia is launching an ongoing action and information campign.
The action will take the form of stepped-up enforcement of the Student Code of Conduct and new rules for the 2004-05 school year. For example, school uniforms must fit properly, students of any age caught with weapons will be arrested and turned over to the police, and cell phones will be taken and not returned.
Smells like zero tolerance is in the air. Not that, properly applied, it's necessarily a bad thing; it certainly avoids charges of racism, favoritism, and whatnot. Past experience, though, leads one to be suspicious; when reading the sentence, "students of any age caught with weapons," it's hard not to think, what age is too low? What does "with" mean here - does the student actually have to have it on his or her person? What about situations where the weapon could have been placed by a third-party? And how loosely are we defining "weapons"?
The small points are arguable, but the "broken-glass theory" is not:
[Schools CEO Paul Vallas] To really get at the type of things that create environments that are conducive to disruptive behavior. It's the broken-glass theory - if students are disrespectful, if children are chronically disruptive, if they're following the uniform policy, but yet they're not. The colors may be right, but the clothing may be totally inappropriate. There are so many things in the schools that we have to tackle. So, the objective is to begin to undertake a number of initiatives designed to get at the problem of poor behavior in the schools, and I like the name you came up with, because this is about old-fashioned manners and civility and without them we cannot have safe school climates.
The number of "alternative" schools will be increased, and those schools will have room for more students. A Saturday morning alternative program, called SMART, will also expand. Police officers will patrol elementary schools in addition to the upper grades. Philly has already tackled the issue of dangerous students, and has apparently traced it back to the issue of chronically disruptive kids.
Q: Elaborate on what you call disruptive behavior.
Vallas: Coming to school late. Not wearing the proper uniform. Bringing jewelry and cell phones and electronic gear into the schools. Using foul language, bullying and being disrespectful are all out. All those things. The bottom line is, we're not going to tolerate any of that stuff. But let's be clear, and let's communicate it to the students and parents up front. Let's be very specific about what we want, what we expect and what we don't want and what we don't expect.
Essentially, this amounts to putting some muscle behind a lot of rules that were already in place. The new guidelines include:
"Chronically late students will be locked out of school unless they arrive with a valid excuse note." Well, that certainly gets them out of the classroom, but what does one do with an 8-year-old who can't get back home and doesn't have a key to his house anyway?
"Phones, beepers and text-messaging devices brought to school will be confiscated...A parent or guardian must come to school to reclaim the device." Some enterprising businessman should set up a $0.25 locker system in a building adjacent to the school, so that kids could check their gear. And hopefully parents will be gracious about retrieving these items, which can be a menace in a chaotic classroom.
Students must dress in the manner, colors and style adopted by their school.
What's out: Oversized T-shirts. Exposed undergarments. Stocking caps, doo rags, bandanas, hats. Muscle shirts, halter tops. Spaghetti straps. See-through clothing...Students dressed inappropriately may be offered school-issue clothing or sent home to change.
While I can empathize with parents who have little money (hand-me-downs rarely fit perfectly, and today's cheap teen fashions aren't exactly modest), it's not that difficult to find clothes that are neither obscene nor baggy. And the "school-issue" clothing should be the ugliest, goofiest stuff from the Goodwill bin.
Ah, here's the weapons definition:
Weapons include guns, knives, any cutting tool, any household item that could be used to cut or stab another person, any blunt weapon and any other item that could be used to inflict serious bodily injury.
Hmm. There's room for stupidity aplenty there, but perhaps Philly's admins will have enough to do without sending home kids who have butter knives or GI Joe guns in their possession.
Vallas says more about the community involvement:
Q: You mentioned the community in general will also be involved.
Vallas: We want to have real faith-based partnerships. Everybody talks a good game about faith-based partneships...and then not much happens. In the past year we've really begun to get some real help from the faith-based community doing crisis intervention. But we want to take a step further. The faith-based institutions are some of the largest and dominant institutions in our neighborhoods. We're asking them to set up SMART programs, and we have developed a template of activities that we want the faith-based institutions to establish in the schools. We're asking all of them to set up after-school gospel choirs and after-school clubs. They can even be Bible clubs or prayer clubs. It doesn't make any difference as long as it's after school and it's voluntary. We're asking them to set up rights-of-passage programs.
Q: Why the religious approach?
Vallas: Schools are isolated in their own communities. Children do not have access to strong institutional supports. A lot of children are being raised by single parents who are struggling just to make ends meet. I visited a school in South Philly last week that had fewer than half the students living with their biological parents. The objective here is to look for strong community institutional supports - clubs, associations, organizations - who can in effect become the big brothers and sisters for the children.
Sounds like Philly is talking the talk when it comes to school discipline. But can they walk the walk?
"The devil's in the details of how you implement and enforce," said Jerry Jordan, vice president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.
Safe Schools Advocate Harvey Rice asked, "How are these going to be enforced?"...
Teachers in some schools have complained of problem students and the fact that it can be hard to punish them or get them out of the classroom. Jordan, of the teachers' union, said "the teachers' number one demand is to do something about discipline problems they're dealing with in the schools."
He added that if the new rules aren't enforced, students will quickly lose respect. "The first time the child walks in with the baggy pants and the teacher says something and there is no follow-up - what do we do?" he asked.
...one high school teacher said he had little faith in new rules, since the current ones aren't followed.
"Have they shown that they're willing to be accountable for what they have in place today?" he asked. "Why should anybody think that something new is going to change?"
A roundup of the interesting, absurd, and eccentric stories that I missed while I was on vacation:
Just as journalists cannot write about John Kerry without mentioning Vietnam, nor the War on Terror without using the word "quagmire," any reporter covering the education beat can't talk about valedictorian controversies without muttering the sacred words of warning, "Blair Hornstine." I have to admit, though, to never having heard of her Massachusetts counterpart, Sharisse Kanet.
The Education Gadfly anticipates a tornado of biased reporting about NCLB in the upcoming months. The 2004 test results will be available this summer and schools that may be labeled as failing are already on the attack. The guidelines for producing a biased report about testing are extensive and 100% correct, from what I've seen, although "Stack the deck with experts" should be "Stack the deck with experts named and unnamed," thanks to the willingness of reporters to fall back on the common line, "Critics say...."
Behind every administrator condemning this action, there's an overburdened elementary teacher thinking, You go, girl. Unapologetically old-fashioned teacher Lori Thomas is still paying for that "drop of soap," though.
Devoted Reader Kevin S. has been bombarding me with emails about "the sorry state of education in Louisiana." The man's not exaggerating.
Thank God my parents went with the car for my 17th birthday. It certainly got me further than in life than a pair of fake boobies would have. Am I the only one who sees something tremendously icky about this?
Okay, this story is too much of a tease. They CAN'T just tell us "eight clicks" without giving us SOME indication of how this could possibly happen. Oh, and Fark's reference for this? Best. Headline. Ever.
I'll take this win, even if it is on a technicality.
What's saddest about this story is that there are probably multitudes of English teachers out there who actually didn't know why Shakespeare used that particular word. Teacher Jennifer, who sounds both engaging and knowledgeable, was probably reprimanded for making other teachers look dumb as well as for offending some highly contentious parents. As for the administrator who chastised Jennifer, I'd call him by his rightful name, but I don't want to go to Hell for it.
And people complain about the illogical items on American standardized tests. Sheesh. At least our questions don't seem like they were written by Monty Python (registration required). That much said, I'd love the chance to respond to any stuffy English professor who had the gall to ask me, "What is the point of me teaching you?"
The American Literary Society has come up with the ultimate plea for special treatment on behalf of all the literary "victims" in the world. The sacred arguments of disability, low-self-esteem, and immigration issues were all invoked in an attempt to convince us that the traumatic lives of bad spellers justifies changing the English language. I say, if you can't find anything better to do with your time than picket a spelling bee, you're living a pretty pathetic life, my friend.
But I'm not picking on those bad spellers. Some of my best friends are bad spellers (hee hee).
Well, I'm finally back home. The vacation was long enough that I was ready to leave by Saturday, so the drive home wasn't too bad. We forgot to bring our digital camera, but the Instapundit is already beach-blogging, so just look at his photos instead.
Ate a lot of shrimp. Wore a lot of sunscreen. Watched a lot of the Reagan funeral on TV. Wasted a whole lot of time, which was the purpose of the trip. During one excursion to a water park, I draped myself across an innertube and floated around a lazy "river" for about an hour-and-a-half, not moving, not speaking, barely even thinking. My boyfriend was much amused, and remarked that he'd never seen me not do something. I usually do two or three things at once - eat lunch and blog, cross-stitch while watching TV, talk on the phone while cleaning house - but I must say, I took to the habit of doing nothing like I was born to do so.
Too bad I won't see that state of mind again for a while. I'll be back in the saddle Monday, hopefully.
Well, Devoted Readers, it's finally time for a vacation. Destination: Garden City Beach, South Carolina. My parents have rented a shorefront beachhouse and I don't plan to do any thinking more taxing than figuring out how many shrimp and scallops I want on my "all-you-can-eat" platter. N2P will cease production from today until June 14th or so. I won't be able to check email while I'm gone, but I'll definitely do that first thing when I return, so keep those links and horror stories coming!
I had a friend take "goth portraits" of me over the weekend. Here and here are two of my favorites. The color one is unretouched (though it's slightly fuzzy from being resized). As you can tell by my skin tone, I'm going to be wearing A LOT of sunscreen at the beach. The only thing I want sizzling is my surf-and-turf platter.
(If you're sensing a full-on gluttony theme for my vacation, you're right.)
Until my return, you may find the following links amusing and provocative:
The Infinite Cat Project is an entertaining example of what happens when a computer geek is a cat lover. But don't miss this photo essay of what happens when the Infinite Cat Project goes horribly wrong.
I always suspected that as the Baby Boomers got old, they would do their damndest to make being old "cool." I was right. Up next: Keith Richards advertising liver transplants.
Ever wonder what Far Side cartoons would look like in real life? From Worth1000.com, one of the most addictive time-wasting sites ever.
I'm convinced this article should have an "April 1" datestamp on it. Surely, even French intellectuals are not pretentious enough to tell us all that we should stay in bed more often to avoid the "Anglo Saxon" work ethic.
Jeff Jarvis explains why you should get involved with Spirit of America.
Finally, A phenomenal interview with the last surviving member of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, as translated by blogger Chrenkoff. Final comment by survivor Marek Edelman: "...Those who say that you don't have to fight for freedom, don't understand what fascism is. I do."
Elliot Wolf, the senior quoted in the WaPo article about the Maryland High School Assessments, has requested via email that I post a link to his entire testimony about the HSAs. The WaPo article gave little context to indicate that Elliot was well-informed about the tests, but his testimony, along with articles listed on his website, indicates that he has definitely done some research when it comes to standardized tests.
I thought this part of Wolf's testimony was particular interesting:
Blair is in a unique position, one that demonstrates the effects of the HSA on a wide range of students. On one end, we house the Math, Science and Computer Science Magnet Program – one of the highest regarded public secondary school programs in the country. On the other end, approximately one third of all students at Blair are recent immigrants to the United States, and cannot read, write or speak English fluently [Note: While Wolf's testimony puts this number at approximately 33%, the WaPo article claimed that a much lower percentage of Blair students - 10% - had limited English proficiency].
Our research has shown that the implementation of these tests has had negative effects on students at all points on this continuum. In the Magnet, we have new freshmen coming out of HSA-aligned Algebra I classes who are severely lacking in even the most basic Algebra skills. They are able to pass the HSA with flying colors, yet many are not prepared for the advanced math classes that their predecessors who completed non-HSAaligned algebra courses were.
Thus, his complaint seems to be that students who are taught Algebra under HSA guidelines in fact learn less about Algebra than those who took non-HSA-aligned courses. As I've said many a time, there's nothing wrong with teaching to the test - if it's a good test. But if Wolf's claim is true, the HSA may not be a very good test at all.