Vocabulary Lessons on Reform

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More Stress Does Not Make Education Better

Increasing stress in schools is toxic to the relationship between teachers, children and learning. Many aspects of the current education reform movement are increasing this stress: lack of job security, reliance on test scores to measure things the tests are not designed to measure, eliminating programs due to budget cuts give students fewer reasons to engage in school, increasing the time devoted to test prep and testing undermines every teachers' integrity because every teacher knows testing is not teaching or learning.

Contrast this short list with teachers being respected and valued, test scores used to inform instruction, expanding programs and course offerings giving students more reasons to engage in school. The things that will help schools help students are obvious and ignored by the reformers because they either do not know what they are doing or they are serving other purposes and only saying their reforms will work. More at this link.

Opposition to Common Core and High Stakes Testing

Several issues have arisen as Common Core is being implemented. The standards have never been implemented anywhere before being rolled out nationwide. Much of the material was developed by starting at "college and career ready" post high school and then back filling the standards and the grades at which there are to be taught. This has led to things being taught at inappropriate times when children are not ready. This has led to extremely high failure rates where Common Core assessments have been given. This is followed by unprecedented stress on students as they are labeled failures because they cannot perform on tasks that are too difficult for them or that they were never taught. Teachers are to be evaluated based on this. As our blog states, "Education 'reformers' have hidden behind their marketing, but the results of their brand of education are starting to impact students and their families. Most do not like the reality of what they have been sold." The resistance to Common Core and high-stakes testing is growing. This was in NY last night...




Originally posted here.

Test Scores Can Tell You the Quality of the Teacher?

 

Paraphrased from Reign of Error by Diane Ravitch

School reformers who lobby our state legislators say that the single biggest difference whether students succeed in school, or not, is the quality of their teacher. They claim this quality is not determined by teacher credentials, experience or education but by performance measured by student test scores.

This simple argument is difficult to refute because the answer is much more complex and often comes off as making excuses. Good teachers are important, yet learning that shows up on tests is affected by a great many factors, many of them outside of school and outside the control of the teacher. These include:

1 The education level of the parents.
2 The presence or absence of peers and siblings who value education and are willing to try their best (called peer effects).
3 Being frequently read to.
4 Use of complex language and an extensive vocabulary when parents talk to their children.
5 Extreme economic stress so there is no stable or secure home life.
6 Prenatal care.
7 Proper preventive health care.
8 Poor parental health.
9 Ability to travel or visit nearby cultural experiences to stimulate curiosity and desire to learn.
10 Live in a zip code where there are no educated adult role models

The claim by reformers is that great teachers can overcome the influence of family, poverty, disability status, language proficiency and students own levels of interest and ability. The reality is that the vast majority of influence on students' school performance is from their family and their circumstances outside of school. Sometimes our greatest success comes in important things that are taught and learned but cannot be tested. Growing desire to come to school, to try, to trust someone, to feel safe, to have friends, to laugh, to take responsibility...

This is not a call to give up. We recognize how the deck is stacked against some of our students, yet we try to overcome it every day. The reformers simply want to stack the deck against us too.