Number 2 Pencil

Happy Halloween!

Remember that WA school board that cancelled Halloween, so as not to offend the myriad real-life witches that live nearby? Uh, well...oops.

Halloween Cat - gif files, a free pattern, even a yoga pose (for humans, not cats).

Best. Halloween. E-Card. Ever.

Finally, the Halloween spirit:

Friday catblogging: Classic photos

Haven't had the chance to take any recent photos, but here are a few of my favs. First up, Pippin when he was still "Nelson" as a ward of the local shelter:

Next, me, thrilled, holding Pippin on the day I brought him home (Valentine's Day of this year):

Finally, Pip and his older sister, happily birdwatching together:

Twins take ETS by storm

They're cute. They're hip. They're awfully smart. And they both did pretty darn well on the SAT:

It seems like the kind of SAT question custom-made for Dillon and Jesse Smith of Long Beach: If one out of every 1,511 students taking the SAT will get a perfect score, what are the odds that twin brothers will both ace the test? nswer: No one knows for sure. Nevertheless, that's what the Smith twins have done.

Both Dillon and Jesse Smith, 16-year-old fraternal twins, achieved the elusive top score of 1600, a number most high school seniors dream about seeing on their SAT score report. "I was very, very happy," said Dillon, describing the moment he realized that both he and his brother received the top score on the aptitude test. "I've been hoping for it since we started."

It was a rare thing to hope for. Of the 1.4 million high school seniors who took the test in 2004, only 939 scored a 1600, according to the College Board, which administers the test. With those numbers, the odds of any two people getting that score would be almost 1 in 2.3 million -- and that doesn't even take into account whether those two people are related, never mind twins.

No, it doesn't (although, as my Devoted Reader Maureen points out, the Newsday reporter gets it wrong by implying that the probability would decrease if family relations were factored in). Dillon and Jesse don't have identical DNA, but they did share a tough mom with high expectations:

"I expected it," said Smith, 44, a physical education teacher at I.S. 143 in Washington Heights. "They have the potential to do even better -- maybe even write the tests ."

What? Momma Smith thinks they could become psychometricians one day? Be still, my beating heart. Oh sure, Jesse is quoted as saying that he doesn't think the test really measures anything, but I figure he's just being modest and humble. After all, I've yet to see the article where a perfect-scoring student is quoted as saying, "Yeah, this test really measures how smart you are, and this proves I'm the best!" I know some top scorers think that, but they'd never say it.

Number 2 Paws

Catblogging hits the big time:

In the vitriolic world of political Web logs, two polar extremes are Eschaton (atrios.blogspot.com), a liberal, often anti-Bush site with a passionate following, and Instapundit (www.instapundit.com), where an equally fervent readership goes for hearty praise of the Administration.

"It brings people together," said Kevin Drum, who began the cat spotlight last year on his own blog, Calpundit (www.calpundit.com). "Both Atrios and Instapundit have done Friday catblogging. It goes to show you can agree on at least a few things."

Have we gone from, "Why can't we all just get along?" to, "Why can't we all just cat around?"

The NYTimes mentions Lawrence Simon and the Carnival of the Cats, from which I was linked for the first time ever. I can't believe that the first time there's a set of links that could lead NYTimes readers to N2P in three clicks comes about because I posted photos of kittens last Thursday.

Silly, but I'll be happy for any additional traffic that wanders this way. Come for the cat-blogging, stay for the test-defending.

(Via Outside the Beltway)

Girls still not figuring out why the birds are different from the bees

Hot on the heels of the fashion mavens who tell us that skin is not in - something concerned parents always knew - come the worried experts telling us something else that concerned parents always knew - girls who take pride in promiscuity face myriad dangers:

Heather, a 16-year-old with sandy blond hair, remembers how it felt the time she had sex on the same day with two different boys. Neither was her boyfriend. "I felt like I was in control," said the Neenah, Wis., native, who like other teens interviewed for this story is being identified only by her first name. "I felt like a player."

Fourteen-year-old Mia of Racine, Wis., explains with pride how she uses a calculated approach to flirting and dating to extract money from multiple boys. "I've been pimping," Mia said. "I've got dudes who give me money every day."

My guess is that parental influences - or lack thereof - play a big part in these sorry tales. Or perhaps this is due to the great public school "socialization" factors that we hear so much about?

A lot of adults may not want to believe it, but these and other teenage girls are adopting some stereotypical "male" attitudes toward sex, according to reports from a national research firm and interviews with girls and officials who work with them...Planned Parenthood says that promiscuity is helping fuel the rise of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers - diseases that can rob girls of the ability to bear children. There's also evidence the trend is turning dangerous in other ways, with girls sexually harassing and even assaulting boys.

Kieran Sawyer, executive director of the TYME OUT Youth Center, a Catholic organization in Waukesha County that runs teen programs that focus on relationships, agreed.

When even Planned Parenthood is siding with the worried parents and the Catholics, you know things have gone too far. It's understandable that, in the revolutionary 70's, feminists trumpted the notion that a woman's independence might depend on her acting like a man - in bed and out - but it's appalling that the notion is still around in this day and age, and for teenagers, no less. Women might have come a long way, baby, but STDs, unwanted pregnancies, and fractured relationships still abound, and ghetto wear that encourages women to objectify their body parts is no more "empowering" now than it would have been in 1972.

To counter these aggressive attitudes, Planned Parenthood is reworking the teen workshops it runs in schools and churches and through other community organizations to place greater emphasis on the importance of healthy relationships. The workshops will force girls who act like pimps and players to examine why.

"We want to ask girls who play boys: `What was the value? What do you get out of this?'" Lathen said. "We want to help girls understand and reject the stereotypes the media projects of them so they can make positive, healthy decisions about their bodies."

Good luck. Given all the "you should be as sexy as you want" messages that have been pushed by "feminists" over the years, Planned Parenthood may find themselves stymied by young girls who literally do not understand any other way to be than as a sex object. And if they don't drag parents into these conferences as well, it's unlikely that will change.

And what would such an article be without a "parents just don't understand" line?

"What a lot of boys and a lot of adults don't understand is that the door swings both ways," said Lisa, 18, of Brookfield, Wis. "It's not just boys who sometimes want something purely physical. Girls have needs too."

Guess what, Lisa? You're not the first girl to think that. You're also not the first girl to think that all those negative things - pregnancies, AIDS, date rape, horrible relationships - aren't going to happen to you. I wish you had more responsible adults in your life to tell you that these bad things can happen, and that satisfying your physical needs does not now, nor has it ever, nor will it ever, come without a high price. Too many girls nowadays are willing to ignore it.

Before any of my Devoted Readers jump in and say this - yes, if I had a daughter, she would be called Alice; she would be homeschooled, and kept in pigtails, and dressed in tights, flat shoes, and jumpers until she was 16 years old. If you think my attitudes mean that I would probably drive any child of mine crazy, yes, you're right.

I always wanted to wear a tiara and sash

I'd always thought it would be a tad surreal to win an Academy Award, or an Olympic gold medal, or some such spectacular trophy for all-around splendiferousness. Surreal because of the rush of adrenaline that comes from all the admiration, knowing you are appreciated - but also knowing that you better get off your duff and do something else so that you don't seem like a flash in the pan.

It's even more surreal, I can now say, to receive a lovely award for which you didn't know you were being considered, and in fact didn't know existed. I fired up my computer this morning to read the following email from Daryl Cobranchi:

Kimberly,

Daryl

Wha? What? Through my blurry and uncaffeinated eyes I stared at the screen. I couldn't figure out what Daryl was talking about. There was an email immediately preceding his with the subject line, "WINNING NOTIFICATION!!!", but even an uncaffeinated hedgehog could've figured out that that was one of those Nigerian-lottery scams. Being not quite as sharp as a hedgehog this morning, I clicked on it, just to be sure:

ATTN;WINNER, We happily announce to you the draws of the Centenary Olympics Big Lottery International programs held on the 25th of OCTOBER 2004 here in Athens, Greece.This promotion takes place every Olympic year You were entered as dependent clients with: Reference Number:NM/BC921245/KY13, and Batch number NM/207161/KOP....

Okay, so it's not that. I went to Daryl's site, and discovered that Education News has declared N2P to be "The BLOG of The Century." They don't say which century; I hope they don't mean the last one:

In Defense of Testing Series
Number 2 Pencil: The BLOG of the Century
Tuesday, October 26, 2004

It seems hard to believe that Kimberly Swygert's BLOG, Number 2 Pencil, approaches its third anniversary. It still seems so new. For those of you unfamiliar, Kimberly is a card-carrying psychometrician who expresses in her BLOG her open, honest, and informed opinions on education policy in general and standardized testing in particular. Before she started, no psychometrician had been willing to do this, in the interest of protecting their careers. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for her courage.

Wow. How flattering. Especially given all of the other edublogs out there (see the list over on the right-hand side of this page if you don't know about them). And they got the timeline right, too - N2P will indeed celebrate its third anniversary in January of 2005. It sounds amazing even to me, especially considering that I thought no one would ever read this blog. Well, I thought maybe some other psychometricians might read it, but no one else.

What a nice way to start the day. A bit surreal, as I said, but nice. Had I known I was in the running for such praise, I would have tried a bit harder and posted a few more testing-related articles, at the expense of a few catblogging posts. But hey! - I made the Carnival of the Cats this week too. So I must be doing well all around.

Now would be a good time ("I'd like to thank the Academy...") to thank those who have provided a great deal of academic, moral, and technical support for N2P, almost since day 1: Joanne Jacobs, Dr. Greg Cizek, Dr. Richard Phelps, John Rosenberg, Dean Esmay, Daryl Cobranchi, and every single one of my Devoted Readers. Without you, this blog would be nothing.

This post will stay at the top of the page for the day; scroll down for new posts.

Proud wearer of long skirts and blazers since 1991

Just think, all you homeschooling parents - here you were keeping your kids away from the "socialization" of hooker-chic fashion, so you don't get to sigh with relief now that Vogue has declared it's okay for a young girl to look like she's not for sale:

Sitting down is a complicated maneuver when you're wearing low-rise jeans.

A word long missing from the style lexicon, it's suddenly on the tongue of every trend-watcher, on the runways of London, Paris and New York, and in the latest issues of magazines as different as Seventeen, InStyle and Vogue.

Aren't you homeschooling parents pleased? The runways of Paris have deemed that it is okay to encourage you to dress your daughters modestly again! Don't you feel bad that your girls didn't get to experience the hooker craze while it was popular?

In a single season, fashion has flipped from cheesy to cutesy...The backlash against revealing fashions has been unusually virulent in recent months, says Lyn Mikel Brown, an associate professor of women's gender and sexuality studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

In other words, try explaining "hooker chic" to an 8-year-old.

What, you mean you homeschooling parents never did have to explain that, because your daughter wasn't surrounded by pre-teens in thongs and low-rise jeans all day long? What were you thinking, not letting your daughter be "socialized" appropriately? Don't you know that unless she wears whatever Vogue tells her to, she'll be doomed to a life of unhappiness?

Update: Thanks to Devoted Reader Liz for posting the links to dressing modestly sites on my comments. A Google search for "modest prom" or "dressing modestly" will also find a lot of sites. Why am I not surprised to find that the very skirt I am wearing today is featured on the Hannah Lise: Modest Clothing for Women and Girls site? Okay, mine has a zebra-pattern in place of the block pattern (and Boston Proper charged three times as much as this site does) - but it's the exact same skirt. And I'm very happy to have found a site that sells long skirts WITHOUT slits.

Do they teach wrestling moves in education programs these days?

Looks like someone should have tried out for the WWF, not the NEA:

Teacher Katrina Ann Rucker, 30, is charged with battery and cruelty to children for allegedly beating a parent who tried to retrieve her daughter's book bag, The Macon Telegraph newspaper reported Friday.

Principal Karen Konke sent letters to parents about the incident. "Let me assure you the school is safe and that our students have been involved in appropriate instructional activities throughout the day," Konke wrote.

Um, where's all the lingo about how the school has "zero tolerance" for this kind of behavior? Or does that only apply to students? As Daryl Cobranchi notes, parents are pulling their kids from this school.

The schools that do it right

Something tells me that touchy-feely educators who are in favored of unstructured and unsupervised learning techniques would be horrified to hear of these practices - and even more horrified to realize that they work:

When California posts numbers Thursday on its scale for measuring school performance, it will show two Silicon Valley elementary schools -- Millikin and Faria -- at unprecedented heights: a perfect score. The schools have shared a similar philosophy in their path to a 1000 score on the state's Academic Performance Index Growth Report. Both maintain a strong focus on excellence, and use back-to-basics methods to achieve it.

At Millikin Elementary in Santa Clara, Yvette Kamfirouzi's kindergarten class looks different. The students, instead of sitting cross-legged on the floor, sit quietly at desks in neat rows. Kamfirouzi stands at a whiteboard, explaining how to draw in missing details on the outline of a dog. Although her instructions veer toward the abstract -- "Remember, we're drawing the dog from the side, so it only gets one eye'' -- the children take dutiful note.

"Dutiful"? "Sitting quietly"? "In neat rows"? Oh, the horror!

"From Day One in kindergarten,'' said veteran Millikin fifth-grade teacher Chris Preece, "our students know what they're here for.''

Let me guess - it's not to "find themselves."

Which is: to work hard and master the basics -- and do both with a minimum of wasted time. Both Milikin and Faria, in Cupertino, offer spots to students from all across their districts, with lotteries determining who gets in. Both demand a high degree of commitment from parents and students. And both offer a strictly back-to-basics curriculum that stresses reading, writing and math.

It is true that Milikin and Faria do not serve disadvantaged populations. But I can't think of a better plan that theirs for a school that wants to help disadvantaged students become advantaged as soon as possible. The worse the home life, the more necessary the type of structure and immediate feedback that these schools possess.

Parents are expected to buy into that philosophy when they enroll their children. If they are lucky enough to win in the January lottery -- last year the school had 260 applications for 60 kindergarten spots -- parents and their children are required to sign an agreement before enrolling. Students pledge to be respectful and do their work; parents pledge to support learning at home, and to get their kids to school every day.

The Millikin philosophy is not for everyone, she acknowledges. Some would have difficulty adapting to the school's highly disciplined approach. Most schools try to adapt to accommodate the frenetic energy levels found in any group of children; at Millikin, it's the children who are expected to adapt.

Imagine that. What a retro concept.

Staff members hasten to say that the school is not some Dickensian bastion of grimness...

They shouldn't have to. It's appalling that a disciplined environment is considered synonymous with "Dickensian" in today's educational settings. Structure, and rules, and discipline for children do not equal torture. Even worse, teachers from the school suffer some harassment from other educators, for supposedly taking only the "smart" kids. Sounds like other schools are unwilling to admit that smart, hard-working kids don't just exist - they can be created, and that's what schools like Milikin and Faria are trying to do.

Here's the Principal's Message from Milikin:

Millikin Basics+ is an alternative school open to all children grades K - 5 in the Santa Clara Unified School District. We are a school that provides a creative, nurturing atmosphere in which to teach a rigorous standards-based curriculum. The primary emphasis of the Basics+ program is the mastery of basic academic skills and the establishment of good study habits. Art, music, computer lab, science lab, curriculum oriented assemblies and field trips as well as many after school enrichment opportunities, help to create a balanced educational program of the highest caliber here at Millikin Elementary. High standards of performance, accountability, and behavior are maintained. Our program requires a strong commitment from parents to help develop the individual personal growth and responsibility of their children so that the school can concentrate on all students achieving proficiencies in academic skills across all content areas.

Contrast that with, say, the type of mission statements you see with dense edu-jargon about diversity, self-esteem, "critical thinking," or self-enrichment, as though school were just a navel-gazing camp or a place to be indoctrinated into become a social activist. The type of mission statements where it's impossible to figure out what, if anything, is actually taught at the school. Like the one for Berkeley High, the only public high school in the Berkeley Unified District:

The Mission of Berkeley High School, an economically and culturally diverse community in a progressive town with rich traditions and established values, is to ensure that each student will achieve success as a productive citizen from a curriculum which assures individual development through critical/creative thinking; through communication skills; and through the application of modern technology in a safe, caring environment with total community support.

Berkeley was declared to be a failing school in 2003. Is anyone surprised?

I'm thinking of changing my name to "This Kimberly Person"

Anyone remember this post, back in April of this year, in which I expressed concern that a teacher named Linda Sorter who spends her time teaching "peace activities" in the classroom?

I thought my opinions were expressed rather mildly - instead of getting all fussy about someone dragging politics into the classroom, I merely asked the following: "Why can't Ms. Sorter just admit that teaching her students her particular, one-sided political beliefs is a big part of her agenda, if not the main part?"

Ms. Sorter was welcome to reply to me to clear up some of my other questions, including whether students who believed that winning the peace means waging war would be welcome in her classroom. I would have posted such a reply had I gotten it (and do note that when a former student of hers posted a comment to defend her, I did not remove it).

Ms. Sorter has indeed written me, but not to clear up any misconceptions I may have. Here is her email, in its entirety:

Kimberly, I stumbled into your website and was quite shocked to find myself "reviewed and evaluated" by you. I have no idea who "you" are, and you, having not the decency or the courtesy to meet me, have NO idea who I am. I can accept any criticism based on fact, but you have no idea what you are talking about. It was pretty awful reading your catalog of lies. Sure gave me enough to know and evaluate you. My former student, JR who responded to your degrading and ridiculing comments, said it all. Thank you, my dear former student, for defending the teacher who always gave the best of herself in her classroom, and for growing up to practice the principles you learned there. Surely you are making the world a better place. Which is a lot more than I can say about this Kimberly person. I will not read your site again, so your response is meaningless to me. Suffice to say, I feel sorry for you, Kimberly.

Note that she didn't actually correct anything I said. She didn't address any of my questions. She just insulted me. So mature. So effective. And so worthy of someone who considers herself an "educator."

What's more, her shock at realizing that her publicly-available information has been read on the Internet, and judged by the public, suggests a bit of discomfort, shall we say, with the Information Age. Somehow, I believe even Miss Manners would support me in my belief that I was in no way discourteous in commenting on news articles about Ms. Sorter's doings without introducing myself to her first.

On the other hand, I can't really say that she didn't clear up any of my misconceptions. I think after reading her reply, we can all guess just how she would have responded to a student who disagreed that origami cranes are useful for spreading the "peace", can't we?

Calling upon the god Neptune is not always helpful

Italian kids indulge in a little vandalism to get out of an exam:

Four Italian teenagers have confessed to flooding one of Milan's best known schools, causing an estimated 500,000 euros in damage, because they did not want to sit a Greek exam. The three girls and one boy, aged between 16 and 17, delivered a letter to the school's headmaster on Thursday, explaining how last weekend they blocked drains in a bathroom before they turned on washbasin taps and left them running.

The headmaster, Carlo Arrigo Pedretti, said the pupils wrote in the letter that they flooded the school to avoid having to sit their ancient Greek test on Monday morning. "I am stunned, I cannot believe it," Pedretti said. "These kids have no idea of the consequence of their actions."

I agree, but in a different way than Pedretti probably thinks. I mean, the Greek language has been around, in one form or another, for over 2100 years. It's not going to go away before the flooded school gets repaired. If those students ever get let back into the school, that evil exam will be sitting there, patiently waiting.

Meow meow meow meow, pt 2

My Friday catblogging has not gone unnoticed: Lawrence Simon of This Blog is Full of Crap is hosting Carnival of the Cats this week, and last Friday's post featuring five kittens is on it.

When one size doesn't fit all

NCLB requirements aren't quite catching everyone - not in a ethnic sense, anyway:

Mesa sixth-grader Valeria Quezada, 11, cannot tell the truth when she takes a standardized test and faces questions about her race and ethnicity. She is Hispanic and a first-generation U.S. citizen on her father’s side of the family. But her mother is white and non-Hispanic.

The five standard categories, which the federal government created in 1977 and incorporated into the No Child Left Behind law in 2002, are: White, Black, Hispanic, Asian and American Indian.

This is old-fashioned, but it was done for simplicity's - and statistical - sake. It's hard to understand why neither the reporter, nor anyone interviewed for this article, felt the need to point out that schools are required to show results disaggregated by these five ethnic groups, which explains why the categories are so large and broad. The goal wasn't to come up with categories that would cover every kid (a la the US Census model), but to define them broadly enough that there would be a substantial sample size in each category. If 10 more ethnic groups get added, it would be logical to require schools to meet the target for all of those new groups as well, which would be much more difficult.

And I'd bet that if "Other" were provided as a category for which schools didn't have to show results, quite a few poorly-run schools would be shoving all their bad test-takers into that category.

Tom Horne, state superintendent of public instruction, said the state is only following directions from the federal government and should not be blamed. "I’m opposed to racial categories on standardized tests," Horne said. "I think students learn as individuals and not as members of a racial or ethnic group."

I agree 100% - about the "students learn as individuals" part. One's race does not define one's performance. Not asking about race, however, makes it possible to disguise race-related test scores gaps, which do persist in this country due to inequalities in education and cultural specifics, not to mention the soft bigotry of low expectations. Removing the racial questions smacks too much of a cover-up to me.

I'm cheating, I know, but I'm doing so well!

The Battalion newspaper from Texas A&M profiles a brainless wonder:

A student walks into her crammed classroom. She finds the perfect seat - one against a wall. The teacher has the seating arrangement so that tests given to the students differentiate from Form A to Form B, each form with different questions and answers. The student makes sure her seat sits at exactly an angle which allows her to see a test in front of her that is identical to hers. Every once in a while, she glances to her front neighbor's test to compare her answers, calculating her peeks to coincide with when the teacher looks away.

"I knew that in high school, if I hadn't cheated, I wouldn't have done really well on my daily assignments," she said. "I didn't cheat on exams. Here, there
aren't any daily grades, so it's more important to do well on exams."

And what about when you graduate and enter the real world, which produces "tests" for which no cheating is possible? Will you expend your energy trying to get around every rule? Will you try to set up every situation so that you can check your "answers?" Will you eventually become insightful enough to wonder why you didn't bother to learn as much as you could in school, or why you didn't choose a major that inspired you so much that you preferred learning to cheating?

Please, Ms. "Aggie with an Alibi". Do the professional world a favor and list this article on your resume when you graduate. If just one company is spared from hiring such a selfish and deluded twit, I'll be pleased.

A "bilingual" program that doesn't produce bilingual kids

El Verano (CA) Elementary School, dismayed by test score gaps, is dismantling its bilingual ed program:

With a third year of federal sanctions ushering in "corrective action," El Verano Elementary school is bracing for some abrupt changes - and the biggest one will likely be dissolving its bilingual program. The aim is to phase the three-year program completely by the end of this school year and have all former bilingual students immersed in full English instruction.

Luis Lopez said he had enrolled his daughter at El Verano so that "she could get some basic Spanish." He said that if the program wasn't working or revealing high enough test scores, "Show me the results. I want to see why it's not working."

I'm confused. He's upset because his English-speaking daughter doesn't get to learn Spanish? My guess is that's not where the problem lies.

The bilingual program at El Verano has roughly 60 children from kindergarten through second grade. The term "bilingual" is somewhat of a misnomer; unlike Flowery Elementary's dual-immersion program, where the intent is to create a bilingual student, the setup at El Verano uses Spanish to help transition children to English.

Why on earth would they choose not to do dual-immersion? Especially for elementary school kids? Whatever their reasons, it appears the gap between those learning English and the overal student body has made the school officials stop and think.

Kerry vs. Bush

More on the education policies from our Presidential candidates:

Roger Giroux, superintendent of the Anoka-Hennepin School District, remembers the old days, when every child wasn't expected to pass every test. If every child passed, "that was a sign of a poor test," Giroux said. "Tests are supposed to discriminate on the performance levels of kids."

It's a big question in the 2004 presidential race.

I understand Giroux's point, but NCLB isn't about challenging tests. It's about minimum-competecy testing, which is why the howls of indignation about the "unfairness" of the tests are often incorrect.

Kerry contends that schools need another $27 billion to implement the law and says that the current funding shortage has left schools too little money to spend on other things, such as smaller classes, textbooks and after-school programs. And he said the situation has been made worse by the president's pursuit of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Education Secretary Rod Paige said the debate over how to fix the nation's schools is about much more than money. From 1965 to 2000, he said, the federal government spent more than $130 billion on programs for disadvantaged students, but "the money seems to have made little difference." The new law, he said, "is making a positive difference in millions of lives" because schools are being forced to show that they're accountable for the money they're spending.

Money without accountability is a waste.

If schools are not testing, that's "punishing children," Bush said, because schools then have no idea how their students are performing.

"I went to Washington to challenge the soft bigotry of low expectations," Bush said in a speech in Chanhassen earlier this month. "I felt strongly we needed to end this business about just shuffling the kids through, grade after grade, year after year, without teaching the basics. We've raised the standards. We measure early to solve problems before it's too late."

...On its Web site, the Kerry campaign complains that too many states are measuring student performance "with fill-in-the-bubble tests that limit both teaching and learning." While Kerry says he's committed to making the law work, he is promising to support states that use more "sophisticated tests that capture the full range of skills that we want students to develop."

Wow, I hope he's planning on plowing a lot more money into the system, then. And when are these new exams going to be pilot-tested and validated?

Many educational critics say that schools are already spending too much time on testing, which takes away from instructional time.

Not if they're good tests, and not if the curriculum is in agreement with the testing standards.

The Tasmanian Devil(ish system)

A Western Heart is all over the new grading system that's being implemented in Tasmania. Note to US teachers - if you think your jargon-laden paperwork requirements are bad, get a load of this:

The world is watching Tasmania's education reforms, says Education Minister Paula Wriedt. Dramatic changes to the state's educational system will start from next year. But teachers fear they are not ready for the transition, which will use vastly different assessment criteria from kindergarten to Year 10.

"This does require a big shift, it's quite groundbreaking," Ms Wriedt said yesterday. "I know some people are not comfortable with the change but equally there are many who are really excited about it...Students don't have to learn everything in the classroom as they always have."

Emphasis mine. What could that last line possibly mean?

From next year teachers will prepare report cards on how students do in whole new areas. Once phase-in is complete, report cards will not list traditional subjects like maths or english, with a grade for each.

A teacher who contacted The Mercury yesterday said many of her colleagues were sceptical and angry about the new system. She said it was over-theorised, jargonised and difficult for teachers, let alone parents, to understand. The secondary teacher said she would have to collaborate with every other teacher on her nearly 300 students.

Not to mention she'll need to have a firm grasp on the continuum underlying the construct of "social responsibility." Or at least what the Dept. of Ed considers socially responsible. Quite a change from focusing on teaching the ABC's.

I'm sure more teachers would be skeptical and angrey too - if they knew anything about the new system, that is:

...in a survey of 1334 teachers across the state by the Australian Education Union, 92 per cent said they did not have good knowledge of the marking system. More than half of primary teachers and three-quarters of secondary ones surveyed said they had little or no knowledge of the new system...

And you thought NCLB had a lot of resistance. This program is going to be implemented next year, and 75% of secondary teachers know very little about it?

From next year, government schools must assess four key areas - inquiry, numeracy, literacy and well-being. More will follow in 2006. They fall into five "essentials" - thinking, communicating (eg, literacy and numeracy), personal futures (ethics and well-being), social responsibility and world futures.

"Thinking"? How, exactly, does one measure "thinking" without focusing specifically on a subject area that a student is "thinking" about? Can a student be determined to be "thinking" well if no one checks to see if they got the right answer? Since when is numeracy part of "communication?" Does this mean that it doesn't matter how well you understand math, only how well you convey it to others? "Personal futures?" You've got be kidding me. How are teachers going to grade on that? Who's defining "well-being" here, especially when we're talking about teenagers? (Let me guess, goths wouldn't be defined as doing "well.")

"Social responsibility?" "World futures?" Those are weighted as heavily as "literacy and numeracy?" I'm highly suspicious of any "social responsibility" that is obviously divorced from civics and history learning; I doubt this method is intended to turn out patriotic and informed little Tasmanians.

The new learning replaces conventional division of subjects into mathematics, English or science - and nothing is compulsory. Instead, "cross-curricular units" will be studied by drawing on various disciplines. For example, learning about water could draw on maths, science and geography.

"Nothing is compulsory." That says it all. I guess being "socially responsible" doesn't extend to having enough of a backbone to insist that all children in Tasmanian schools learn some required amount of math, language, history, and science.

New York - It Ain't Kansas

As if NYC teachers didn't have enough to worry about (third-grade reading tests, anyone?), their personal possessions are getting pilfered:

An outbreak of thefts has plagued city schools, as petty criminals have made off with cell phones, purses, jewelry and laptops. One teacher even lost her coat from inside school headquarters at the Tweed Courthouse - where guests are scanned and photographed and have to cough up identification before entering.

A Bronx middle school teacher who asked to remain anonymous said he has been pickpocketed twice while working and once caught a sixth-grade girl in the act. "The students feel like there are no consequences," he said.

Good Lord. My job is stressful, too, but at least I don't have to worry about what's in my pockets.

TGIF

This has been a very productive week, work-wise; not quite so for blogging, or anything else (you should see the pile of laundry in the bedroom). My brain is rather fried at the moment, so here's a list of unrelated things - some education-related, some definitely not - going through my head.

Do any colleges in Oklahoma cover "Lessons Learned From The Debacle That Was Prohibition" in history class?

Hey, I'm a fan of Febreze, too - but I'm tactful about it. What is it with crazy teachers and their obsessions with smells?

The California College Republicans - talk about a marginalized group - have had it with Rock the Vote's alleged "non-partisanship," and their fake draft scare.

According to Common Sense and Wonder, a French deputy believes that English as the primary world language won't last, and recommends that all French schoolchildren be taught Arabic instead. Yeah, that'll fix things.

If you're going to take a shot at Ann Coulter, you'd better have good aim. Because if you miss, all you're going to do is enrage her.

I'm a cat-lover. But even I think this is a tad much. Then again, I thought "Friendster" was silly, too.

Bittersweet has the best response to those Brits who think they need to tell us how to vote.

The Cranky Professor notes a growing disenchantment with the PTA, and I don't blame him for wondering why only "one voice" can be heard.

FInally, I just have to say that the current crop of movie actors doesn't do much for me (and no, it's not just because I'm getting old; I've always been this way, more or less). Brad Pitt does nothing for me. Johnny Depp just looks messy. Viggo Mortensen is too much of a peacenik. And few of them could turn my head, even for a second.

But the old-time movie actors - back when men were men, who could sing and dance as well as act - really turn my head. If Colin Ferrell approached me at a party, I wouldn't be distracted. But if a man who looked like Gene Kelly walked through the door - and smiled at me:

...my affianced fidelity vows would be seriously put to the test.

Cheating news roundup

Caveon's biweekly Cheating In The News collection includes this description of over-achieving cheaters:

High-tech schemes to achieve undeserved academic success can sometimes be quite intricate. One case involved two senior undergraduates at a major East Coast university. While one was taking the nationwide Graduate Record Examination, he used a wireless transmitter to send images of the test to his accomplice waiting in a van. The accomplice then ascertained the answers to the test questions, sending them back to the exam taker via walkie-talkies. The two young men supposedly invested $12,000 in equipment to implement their plan; they were arrested on charges of burglary and unlawful duplication of computer material.

Raise your hand if you think it would have been a lot easier to just study for the dang test than to go to this much effort. Examples like this give lie to the notion that all cheating is based on laziness. Some examinees expend so much effort in cheating that it can only be from the ego-boosting high that comes from defying authority. A natural outgrowth of the "you're perfect just as you are" false self-esteem lessons taught in our schools, I'd say.

Columnist Trevor Bothwell of The Fence, on the other, keeps the blame on the schools, but insists that the "cooperative learning" lessons are the cause:

For years now public schools have championed the merits of “cooperative learning,” where students are grouped into mini-communes of four or five. The idea here is to encourage cooperation between peers, where the brighter students in the group are expected to facilitate the learning of those less academically adroit.

Aside from the sheer foolishness of expecting any individual student to be responsible for the learning of anyone but himself, “cooperative” methods of learning discourage independent thinking in addition to encouraging misbehavior and cheating. Indeed, these instructional methods are invented by the very same teachers who believe grading papers with red ink is “pretty frightening” for kids, at least according to Sharon Carlson, a health and physical education teacher at JFK Middle School in Northampton, Mass.

From the New York Post comes a tale of today's confused teenagers:

A national survey of 24,763 high-schoolers found 62 percent of them admitted cheating on a school test in the past 12 months, 27 percent stole something from a store during that period, and 40 percent admit they "sometimes lie to save money." In a telling twist, nearly a third didn't even tell the truth on the integrity survey — 29 percent of the students polled by the Josephson Institute of Ethics 'fessed up to fibbing on one or two of the more than 60 questions.

But, despite owning up to dishonest behavior, a whopping 98 percent of the students believe "honesty and trust are essential in personal relationships" — and 83 percent said at least half their acquaintances would put their name on a list of "the most ethical people they know."

Sad to say, they might be the most ethical people they know. Their friends could certainly be worse. The part about honesty in personal relationships is sad on several levels. My guess is what these kids consider inter-relationship "honesty" is being blunt, tactless, and telling the other person exactly what you think of them - which is NOT necessarily the key to a successful relationship. The kinder world of moral individuals who practice social hypocrisy to keep the peace (the "little white lies" that make life easier) has been replaced by a world in which cheating is fine, and so is insulting people to their faces.

Finally, at UT-Arlington, a panel on academic honesty brings out some interesting statements:

Cheaters prosper, Engineering Senator, Nicolas Cornor said. “Martha Stewart, Haliburton, Enron and Microsoft are accurate representations that honesty in the public doesn’t get you anywhere,” the aerospace engineering sophomore said.

Isn't Martha unhappily divorced and in jail right now? Sure, she's still rich, but I'm not sure I'd want to be in her shoes.

Patricia Nickel, testing assessment services coordinator, rebutted by saying students have a responsibility to hold up the university’s reputation even after they leave. “If you cheated your way through school and you don’t really know the material, you are hurting the university,” Nickel said. “These people go out into the work force and represent UTA. If they look bad, we look bad.”

Patricia Nickel, coordinator for testing assessment services, rebutted by saying if people can not turn off their cell phones for an hour lecture, then they should really ask themselves what they are doing here.

I like this Nickel gal.

Friday catblogging

Here's what I saw, last night at the intake center, when I opened the cage containing Kirsten, George, Chris, Eddie, and Betty:

Here's what I saw a millisecond after I put some canned food in the cage:

Hungry little buggers, they were.

Need a cat? Go here!

Update: Welcome to everyone from Carnival of the Cats! To find all my previous catblogging pictures, enter "catblogging" into the search engine on the right-hand side of the page.

Also, please note that many, if not all, of the catblogging photos were taken with a camera phone, hence their less-than-stellar quality.

I guess "The Wizard of Oz" is off the playlist this year

Good grief.

PUYALLUP - "Let them have their 30-minutes of dressing goofy and having candy," said Silas Macon on the grounds of Puyallup's Maplewood Elementary School Wednesday afternoon. He'd just learned the grade school tradition of a party and parade in costume during the last half-hour of class before Halloween night won't happen this year in the Puyallup School District for his two daughters.

"They're so worried about being politically correct anymore that we're not allowed to do much of anything," said parent Tonya Reynolds whose daughter attends Maplewood Elementary.

So, let me get this straight. Christians who don't like Halloween, and don't allow their children to celebrate it, are just narrow-minded bigots who shouldn't be allowed to push their views on the rest of us. After all, there's nothing on the district guidelines about not offending Christians.

But Wiccans who don't like Halloween - they're perfectly okay? And banning Halloween costumes and celebrations for everyone, regardless of their religious identity, is somehow not narrow-minded in this circumstance?

I know Wiccans out the yin-yang. While they aren't impressed with the Hollywood portrayals of witches (insane, sex-crazed, scary, or some combination of the three), I've yet to hear one complain about children's Halloween costumes. My Wiccan friends are too busy dressing up as goddesses, men, or Jeannie from "I Dream Of Jeannie" to really care what anyone else is wearing.

Update: Via Wizbang, I found the Downtown Chick Chat, who says:

Give me a break! What's next? Pumpkins will go on protest for pumpkin cruelty because people are carving them as jack-o-lanterns and removing their guts?...

I believe in God but I don't get all pissy about people dressing up as Angels, Devils, Nuns and so on. Lighten up people!

Yeah. What she said.

She's the Little Engine That Could

Yahoo! for Joanne Jacobs:

At the start of 2001, I quit my well-paid, high-status, no-heavy-lifting job as a San Jose Mercury News columnist and editorial writer to write a book on a start-up charter school. For awhile now, I've been wondering if I'd ever get the book published. Finally, after interminable delays and dithering, I have a publisher, Palgrave Macmillan. The advance is pathetically small, so if I make any money from the book it will come from royalties, which I'll have to generate by relentless self-promotion. With the help of my blogger buddies, I hope. Anyone who's a close personal friend of Oprah, drop me a line.

I'm still a bit stunned. I've got a real, big-name publisher. Soon I'll have a deadline (I love deadlines) and School Work: How Two Grumpy Optimists Started a Successful Charter School will have a scheduled publication date and it will happen.

After the big waves come the waivers

Thanks to the recent stampede of hurricanes through Florida, some schools may be able to obtain a "storm waiver":

State education officials said Tuesday that some hurricane-ravaged schools can appeal their grades next summer if students show unexpected declines on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. But the same consideration doesn't extend to the students themselves.

To be eligible for a grade waiver, schools must have been shut down more than five days by a hurricane, have shown good or improved grades over the last three years, and drop at least a letter grade next year. They must also show obvious effects of hurricane damage, such as a high number of dislocated students or classes on double sessions.

One other solution: Change the FCAT to measure how well students know to board up houses, purify drinking water, and plot evacuation routes. You know, the skills children need to best function in Florida.

Sounds like Teresa just opposes teaching kids to read

Best of the Web gets off two irresistable jabs at the Kerry camp today:

As if the conflicting polls of "registered voters," "likely voters" and "national adults" weren't confusing enough, now we have a pair of surveys of American children that show contradictory results:

Apparently kids who read favor Bush, while those who watch TV prefer Kerry. Hmm, whose parents are more likely to vote?

Heh. Meanwhile, Teresa Heinz Kerry ingratiates herself with public school teachers, and shows her oh-so-empathetic side for the work teachers do every day:

From a USA Today interview with Teresa Heinz Kerry, the opinionated ketchup heiress and philanthropist:

According to her White House bio, Laura Bush has worked as a public school teacher and librarian. Does Teresa not believe these are "real jobs"?

Double heh. And don't miss Joanne's citing of John Kerry's "nuanced" comments on NCLB.

Update: Teresa realizes her mistake:

"I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children. As someone who has been both a full time mom and full time in workforce, I know we all have valuable experiences that shape who we are. I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as First Lady, and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past."

Skipping out on the exams

Fellow blogger Liz Ditz emailed me to point out that students are skipping out on exams that are low-stakes to them, but high-stakes to the schools:

Torrey Pines High School [CA], the academic powerhouse proclaimed by Newsweek as among the top 100 campuses in the country, is in the academic doghouse. Nearly 300 students at Torrey Pines skipped the statewide standardized tests in the spring, and because of low turnout, one the highest-achieving high schools in California didn't receive a statewide ranking, known as the Academic Performance Index.

Principal Rick Schmitt said the API score is a symbol of a school's academic standing. It affects property values and is used by real estate agents to sell homes..."Individuals feel there's nothing in it for them," said Schmitt of students who are expected to take the tests. "If the community is better informed and once people understand what it means on a bigger scale, they can appreciate why it's important."

Well, yes, but I can see why students skip. Trying to get good data without stakes for the test-taker has always been a thorny issue, and there's not any one solution that works for all tests. When students get fed up with tests to the point of drawing cool patterns on their bubble sheets, something's gotta change. The data are worthless at that point. Students must have an incentive.

They study hard for the SAT and sweat over the APs; they at least show up for the high school exit exam. But yet another test that doesn't matter at all, to them, might be too much.

Stressing out in Virginia

Devoted Reader nicksmama sent this along with the headline, "Bad test-takers rejoice!":

Diane Smart has seen the stress and strain Praxis I puts on some teachers. For their sake, she's hoping the Virginia Board of Education lowers the scoring standards later this month for the general-knowledge teacher assessment test.

Virginia has the highest minimum required scores of the 28 states that use Praxis I. While most teachers pass the state requirements, others struggle.

And...isn't that to be expected? Otherwise, why give the test? Oh wait, I get it - everyone who has a love of teaching should be allowed to be a teacher, right? No matter how much - or little - material they've mastered.

On Oct. 28, the state Board of Education will consider lowering the standards in one or more of the three assessment areas...The standardized test is similar to the SAT. Each section takes about an hour to complete.

The average requirements in other states are about 172 for math, 174 for reading and 172 for writing.

Emphasis mine. Care to tell me why men and women with bachelor's degrees shouldn't be expected to do well on a test of ninth-grade math?

Smart thinks the discrepancy is unfair and can force people to take the $130 test multiple times. She points to No Child Left Behind, which is the same in all states, and says Praxis I requirements also should be uniform.

"Unfair"? Really? Why? Because someone always fails it? And I thought teachers disliked NCLB because it imposed government standards on student performance. Now we hear that teachers want government standards on teacher performance?

Despite Virginia's allegedly-unreasonable high standards, it's not like massive numbers of would-be teachers are failing it. But the statistics are telling:

According to 2002-03 statewide data, about 92 percent passed the reading section, and 86 percent scored at least the minimum on math. People fared worst in writing, with 82 percent passing.

If you want to teach children, you should be required to pass any and all writing exams the state puts before you. End of story. Writing well is not an elective skill for a teacher of any subject, at any level. The ACT and SAT are alternate exams - and they both have writing components.

Let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel

The education-related news of late has been a tad...strange.

I would have killed for this job when I was a kid. I doubt I would have given the thumbs-up to asparagus salsa, though.

I never knew voodoo was this popular in Japan, much less among school principals.

I remember sweating to death during those long August band practices in South Carolina. I do not remember, however, any band instructor being dumb enough to think that this was a good way to cool us all off.

"Don't count your chickens before they hatch" may be a cliche, but it's one that St. Mary's College apparently never learned.

My, Philadelphia makes the national news with such classy education stories. And it's not the first time this school made the news in this way this year, either.

The freak dancing controversy has reached upstate Washington! Rebellious students are planning to have an alternative dance that will most likely feature some freaky stuff. Best line: "'It's kind of ridiculous they are saying this is sexually explicit' when every dance, even the bunny hop, can be so, said Corbitt, a Kamiak senior."

If any of my Devoted Readers know how to do a sexually suggestive bunny hop, can they teach Dave and I how to do it before our wedding receptions? Man, my grandmother would faint.

Update: And then there's the Children's Center of San Lorenzo Valley, which is fed up with grant cuts, and no longer interested in Tupperware parties.

Figures lie, but some more than others...

When someone admits that the statistics they're using to "prove" their point are false, but it's all for a good cause, well, them's fightin' words:

A Rockville animal-rights activist has sent out a mass mailing to property owners in Garrett County, Md., stating they should not allow bear hunters on their properties because 40 percent of them are drug addicts, drunks or mentally unstable.

"My personal opinion is that anybody who goes out and shoots helpless animals has a psychiatric problem," said Mr. Hightower, 82, a former hunter and World War II veteran. "Logically, statistically if you look at a sample of the regular population, certain people will have some kind of psychiatric problems."

Oh. Yeah. That's logical. And statistically sound. To make an opinion about a mental condition you're not qualified to diagnose, and extrapolate that the condition is true for a certain portion of the population in question (about which you really know nothing) and then to send out an unsolicited mass mailing to complete strangers using numbers you admit are false....yeah.

And it's supposedly the hunters who are mentally ill?

This is why statistics get a bad rap, and why most people who read them are soon snoring with boredom, under the assumption that the numbers are horse puckey anyway.

This is also why I reassure people, when mentioning all the animals I've lived with and animal shelters I've worked for, that I'm not actually an animal-rights person.

Don't let the sweet look fool you - Bubba could kick your butt

The work schedule is kinda crazy right now - I didn't get home until 10 pm last night, and I have a ridiculous amount of stuff to do this weekend. I should be able to post, but I can't promise to answer email too promptly, nor to necessarily use all the lovely suggestions all of you are sending my way. I apologize if you sent me something juicy and haven't yet gotten the honor of a reply.

In fact, I have to skip out on my volunteer work this evening because of work, but here's a bit of catblogging to tide us over:

Lawrence of the erstwhile Amish Tech Support provides the best of his "catcam." Don't miss any photo of Edloe, who is so large she has developed her own gravitational mass.

Down South, we grow 'em big, and we name 'em "Bubba."

The blog CatOutLoud comes to you courtesy of a feral cat rescuer.

Cat unsuccessfully chases bird, through house - a photo essay.

When Cats Attack! - guaranteed to make the blood run cold.

Over at Meryl Yourish's place, it's Kittypalooza.

Finally, when cats and computers mix. I must say, my Pippin loves watching websites scroll by.

Well, he can't plead a "disadvanted" upbringing

The royals are not immune to the cheating bug, it appears:

Prince Harry was secretly taped by his Eton teacher to prove her claims that he was an exam cheat, a tribunal heard today. The hearing listened to the recording of the prince saying he had only done a "tiny, tiny" bit of the coursework for his art A-level.

The tribunal heard that shortly after making the tape Miss Forsyth justified her actions in a letter saying "no one was prepared to listen to my complaint".

If I follow the story correctly, Miss Forsyth is claiming that in order to keep her job, she was forced to prepare material that would be submitted as part of Prince Harry's A-level coursework. If true, this is appalling, but then the entire scenario seems appalling, with mud being flung in every direction.

Education in the debate

From the third Presidential debate on October 13, 2004:

Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?