321 Learn! » no child left behind

Testing?

Jennifer Wagaman — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:36:21 +0000

‘nuf said…

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Common Core Standards

Jennifer Wagaman — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 19:13:00 +0000

As teachers head back to school all across the country, many will be hearing about the Common Core Standards that is taking the place of No Child Left Behind.

So what are these Common Core Standards?

They are exactly what they sound like: core standards that are common to everyone. Different states have had different standards, which has led to discrepancies between states; take an average student from Maryland and from Florida and you will see what I mean. These common standards are designed to eliminate this discrepancy.

The Core Standards are NOT Federal Mandates from the Government – this was a state led initiative, read more about their creation on their website. That said, in the FAQs there is talk about how the Federal Government can “support” schools in their adoption of these standards, kinda of reads like “no, the Federal Government didn’t create them, we did! Who cares if they are the ones who hired us to do this…” (Easier to get someone else to do your dirty work, right?)

Where Did these Core Standards Come From?

According to the Common Core State Standards website, teachers, school administrators (scary!) and “experts” (hmmmmm) developed the standards. While the collaboration may seem a bit suspect, I actually think the standards are probably pretty ok. I mean, educators don’t like to reinvent the wheel (even if the wheel is broken, perhaps) so likely they just took the “best” standards from various states (at least, they claim to not have formed the lowest common denominator, so I would hope they picked the best). So while they may look new, don’t panic, it’s probably not going to change what you do in the classroom all that much.

Who is Using the Common Core Standards? Are they Mandatory?

These Core State Standards are not mandatory – indeed not all states have adopted them yet. I wonder how long those remaining few states will hold out, though, peer pressure being what it is. So yes, they are voluntary and yet I am sure it will not be long before it is accepted by everyone.

Will This Lead to a Common Curriculum too?

Check out the FAQ on their website and you get a lot of legalese – Read between the lines and you get “we’d love there to be a single common curriculum for all schools in all states, it would make it so much easier to ensure our agenda is accomplished!!!”

Beyond that, I withhold judgement until the results are in – For some teachers it will mean a change in the curriculum and for others it will be business as usual. Perhaps in 10 years we’ll all be glad for uniformity in standards… or perhaps not.

Teacher Appreciation Day … or Not

Jennifer Wagaman — Mon, 02 May 2011 16:49:17 +0000

Teachers are being laid off, furlough days added to the calendar in order to cut back on pay roll, programs are cut, class sizes increasing and the worst is yet to come. Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education, tells teachers in an open letter that “in the next decade, half of America’s teachers are likely to retire”. I wonder how many are being forced to retire or how many are jumping ship before things get any worse?

So now we stop to appreciate our teachers. Let’s look at what we’ve done to teachers in the past few years: Teachers are having to find second jobs to pay the bills; the best teachers looking for new jobs. Some districts are questioning whether 12th grade is a necessity, while a the same time looking at trying to educate 3 year olds. Test scores are now the only thing that matters and teachers no longer promote honesty and integrity as filling in the bubble on a scan-tron, even when the answer is not known, is of a higher priority. (I am a Bad Teacher, by Valarie Strauss)

Here are some questions I have about the whole situation:

1. How many administrators eat out each week? (because we can’t afford to on a teacher’s salary after pay cuts and mandatory raises in our pension contribution…)

2. How many government budget makers are struggling to pay for health insurance? (because many teachers have to pay this by themselves now, something that is quite difficult unless a spouse has another career that pays well)

3. How may students can you physically stuff into a single room and expect to learn?

4. How will eliminating 12th grade help colleges who already complain about having to provide remedial support for incoming freshmen?

5. How will bringing in students 1-2 years sooner (3 and 4 years-old) improve a system that can’t figure out how to educate them starting at age 5?

6. How does cutting pay for teachers solve anything? (unless you really want fewer teachers in the school systems, then that will help)

My prediction – at least 2 more years of worsening before it begins to hold steady. In that amount of time, who knows how many teachers will be left? The fact of the matter is that we need good veteran teachers to mentor and help train up the new teaches entering the field. Without the veteran teachers, new teachers will have a bigger steeper learning curve.

Arne Duncan makes bold claims: “I hear you, I value you, and I respect you.” A statement that is hard to swallow when teachers feel their cries fall on deaf ears, find that their value now lies in the accuracy of student’s ability to fill out a scan-tron sheet and respect for their job lies in a dwindling paycheck that doesn’t cover all the bills anymore.

Budget makers – your values are showing through as you continue to cut back education funding. Where will it stop? When will the education of the next generation be a priority? Cut out the rhetoric, talk means nothing. Put yourself in a classroom and find out what teachers do every day. Stop asking teachers to get kids to pass a test while pulling the rug out from under them at the same time.

Or are we going to start offering free and reduced lunches to teachers as well as the kids?

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day

Eliminating Grading Scale (Push for Mastery)

Jennifer Wagaman — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:36:13 +0000

Teachers today will usually all agree on a couple things:

1. There is not enough time to teach a single skill until all students have mastered it.

2. This lack of mastery is a result of a curriculum that requires them to move ahead too quickly.

I personally think it is not the fault of the curriculum that prevents mastery, but the schedule and setup of the public school system that does not allow enough focus on academics.

I grew up homeschooled, a fact that is often surprising to people, and recently had a conversation with my mom about how we were graded. Easy answer – we weren’t. There was no need to provide grades because we simply worked on a skill until it was mastered. There was not room for B’s and C’s because the expectation was that we would LEARN the material, not that we would become somewhat familiar with the material.

If someone were to suggest eliminating the grading scale, parents and teachers alike would probably spin into a tizzy, trying to figure out how to know whether their children (or students) were learning anything in school. If only teachers had the time during the day to teach students to the point of mastery, then grades would not be necessary because parents would know that their children were LEARNING.

Lets take a moment now to look at how much time teachers generally spend teaching per day (this does not take into account testing, pretesting, etc. This is based on one schedule at a public elementary school – other schools will obviously have different schedules with different total teaching/down times).

Students arrived: 9:00AM

Math: 9:30-10:15

Specials- 10:15-11:15

Lunch and recess: 11:30-12:30

Water/bathroom break/quiet reading at desks – 12:30-1:00

Language Arts (reading and writing combined) – 1:00-2:00

Social studies – 2:00-2:45

Pack up/clean up/read aloud – 2:45-3:15

Dismissal: 3:15

Total time teaching in classroom: 2.5 hours

Total time at school: 6 hours and 15 minutes.

Then you throw in field trips, assemblies, discipline problems that interrupt instructional time, etc. and that amount of instructional time reduces even more.

So let me ask you – is it the curriculum that is the “cause” of the lack of teacher’s ability to teach a skill until student’s have mastered it?

Should We Raise School Standards?

Jennifer Wagaman — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:39:37 +0000

So… should we raise school standards? Raises a few questions, doesn’t it?

A Quick Look at Differentiated Instruction

Jennifer Wagaman — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 18:50:41 +0000

Differentiated Instruction, or teaching various levels at the same time to a classroom full of students who are learning at different lessons, is a commonly discussed topic in the schools today. The thing that is interesting is that some of the ideas for how to do this seem to lose site of the end goal.

When planning any lesson, it is important to first ask: what is the ultimate goal behind this lesson?

Example One: Differentiated Instruction of Perimeter and Area

So for example – Students will learn how to measure the perimeter and area of a shape. The ultimate goal is NOT that students will simply be able to improve upon prior knowledge. (I am sure everyone will agree there, but surprisingly, differentiated instruction seems to lose this idea). Additionally it is NOT that students will be able to pass a unit test. You might say that the ultimate goal is to pass the state tests, and in one sense that is an ultimate goal. The final ultimate goal is for students to be able to grow up, measure their living room and purchase the correct amount of carpet.

Looking at differentiating instruction for this concept has come a long way from even just a few years ago. It used to be that teachers were told to provide several examples and then allow time to work in small groups so that students who struggled with the concept could have personal time with the teacher to learn a difficult concept.

A New Look at Differentiated Instruction

Now teachers are being prompted to provide a variety of complexities in the problems given. Now for this example, the complexity does not compromise the concept: finding the area of a room that is 5×5 square uses the same formula as finding the area of a room that is 10×32. When it is time to add other shapes to the room, the problem becomes more sticky.

One article I recently read stated that students should be given a list of several questions of varying difficulty and allowed to choose a couple of those to answer, allowing the advanced students the chance at harder questions and slower students the chance at easier questions. The problem is, if the easy problems: a room that is only 5×5, are the only ones answered, then those students who are struggling will never have practice with more difficult problems: a room that has to be divided into three sections in order to figure out the area, for example.

Example Two: Differentiated Instruction for Multiplication

One example given in the article was multiplication. Given a selection of multiplication problems, students who have not grasped double digit multiplication can answer only single digit questions while students who are more advanced can answer more difficult double digit multiplication.

My question – when does the slower student learn double digit multiplication? And if your ultimate goal is that state test, how does that slower student have a chance at passing when they are always given the option of a simpler problem? Lose the problem sets and bring back individualized attention, please!

Focus on Remediation

Jennifer Wagaman — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:59:31 +0000

Remediation seems to be the name of the game in public education these days. In one school, the second grade math lab is being discontinued so that the person who ran that can instead focus on remediation with older students who take the state testing.

While on the one hand this seems like a logical step – the kids who will be tested need to have the help necessary to catch up and be “on level” for their grade in math.

On the other hand, the logic seems a bit backwards – the kids who now will not receive the math lab in second grade will be the ones who will eventually have to participate in the remediation in older grades.

Putting a bandage on a problem, like remediation for students with poor test scores, can help heal the wound (poor test scores), but why do this at the expense of those students who are at high risk for needing remediation later?

Any Dr.will agree that preventative medicine is the best – eat healthy, exercise, get plenty of sleep. If the medical industry stopped focusing on these healthy lifestyle choices, teaching individuals how to care for themselves and stay healthy, and instead focused all their time and energy on healing those who became sick, that would turn our health care system upside down. While Dr’s (and remediation) are absolutely necessary, preventative medicine (and perhaps math labs for second graders) is just as important if not more so.

2011 Proposed Budget for Teachers

Jennifer Wagaman — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:06:19 +0000

President Obama has proposed quite a change to the 2011 budget for schools.

Of worthy note:

An increase of 4.5 billion dollars of discretionary funds.
An increase of 1.35 billion dollars towards Race to the Top incentives
500 million for the investing in innovation program, a competitive awards program.
900 million for the school turnaround grants designed to help administrators turn around the 5,000 lowest preforming schools over 5 years
950 million for teacher and leader innovation program, creating incentives for effective teachers
405 million for teacher and leader pathways, promoting alternate certification routes
1 billion for effective teaching and learning for a complete education, a new program to support college and career readiness.
490 million for expanding educational options, which consolidates 5 programs into one, focused on charter schools and public school choice.
450 million for Assessing Achievement authority, which will help improve assessments for ESL students and students with disabilities, among other assessment developments.
210 million for the Promise Neighborhoods initiative, a competitive award for neighborhood programs working against poverty.
410 million to consolidate 6 authorities into one Successful, Safe, and Healthy Student authority. This program will provide communities the ability to focus on improving school climate and safety for students.
7.5 billion over 10 year to expand the income-based repayment options in post-secondary student loan programs.

Note among the proposals the amount of funds that are provided as rewards, awards and grants. This is a huge shift towards incentive based pay, a concept that many in administrative positions think is the solution for raising student test scores.

The fact, though, is that restructuring the way teachers are paid will not have a significant impact on the student test scores. Changes need to be made in the resources available to teachers as well – curriculum options, how time is spent during the school day, and similar changes.

What do you think will make a difference? Will these proposed budget changes bring about the needed turn-about in public education?

Student Assessment

Jennifer Wagaman — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 19:51:30 +0000

Student assessment is a vital part of teaching. There is some confusion surrounding lesson plan assessment, though. Student assessment is not an opportunity to find out if a student learned the required material. Rather, it is an opportunity for teachers to measure the success of their own teaching methods.

With this understanding comes a bit of confusion, though, as teacher performance begins to play into teacher salary. While it is true that student assessment demonstrates teacher effectiveness, it is not true that a standardized test can demonstrate the overall effectiveness of any one teacher, school or school district.

When the proper tools and ample amount of teaching time is provided to teachers, all students should learn. Unfortunately, though, all students cannot be expected to learn at the same rate. Even two students in the same grade cannot be expected to learn at the same rate, and expecting teachers to have all students passing the same test at the same time is ludicrous.

Instead, teachers should be held responsible for student learning. If John knows 50% of the information on a test prior to instruction, that teacher should be held responsible for Johns increase in knowledge to, say, 80% on the same test. The problem is, without knowing what the student starting level is, there is no way to hold teachers properly responsible for student growth.

No Child Left Behind?

Jennifer Wagaman — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:25:49 +0000

As test scores come back for area schools, parents and teachers alike are inspecting them, looking at what schools passed and what school did not pass. More and more schools are passing the state tests, with more and more students in each category testing at a proficient level.

What do these test scores actually tell us? Are teachers doing their jobs better? Are students getting smarter?

The only thing these scores tell us is that students are getting better at passing a specific test. This would indicate that students are learning the basic skills required by these tests and that teachers are doing a better job teaching these skills.

The better question to ask is: are these state tests looking at the right thing? Are these tests measuring the skills that our students need to learn?