A "Pink '57 Quandary"

First: THE STATEMENT...

So it's been determined by state-mandated tests that a majority of our students are not "proficient" in Language Arts and/or Math. According to those tests our students are way behind in English and Math compared to the students in other, more successful, districts. Test after test has shown this (approximately 20 class days of state or district mandated tests).

Now: THE QUANDARY...

If we keep losing so many days and classes for testing how will we ever catch up to the "proficient" schools? With so many days devoted to testing (not learning), are our students destined to languish in the lower levels of the "data mine"? What a cruel joke... a test that was originally developed to level the playing field for all students in the state turns out to be the engine of inequality of education.

Comment update

I am having some difficulty with comments. It appears that there is a "glitch" in the program and some readers' comments are not appearing. I'm not sure what is happening and I'm trying to correct the problem. However, if you do want to comment, sign on as "anonymous" in the drop-down box and your comment will appear. If you like, you can include your name and URL in the comment and I will respond.

Where's the Fun???

I love this new High Stakes Testing!

No teaching...just testing!

So far we have lost three teaching days in the fall, three more this week, and another three more projected for next week. All for state-mandated tests. Add to that the new benchmark tests for marking periods one and three (two days for each) and the mid-terms and finals (two more for each). (Incidentally, in true Through the Looking Glass fashion, the benchmarks test to see how well the students will do on the state-mandated tests. How innovative! Testing to predict performance on the test! In the old days, we just took one test to determine how well the students did on that test. How backward we all were then!

Mind you, these are just the state-mandated tests. I haven't even calculated the quizzes,tests, projects, that I must give in class to determine marking period grades. Yikes!

No wonder those state-mandated tests only test general skills and grade holistically. We don't teach enough hard knowledge for the students to be tested on a real achievement test.

Seriously though, when do I get to teach the "fun" stuff - reading for enjoyment, poetry writing, choral readings, dramatic writing and presentation, media studies, connective/interactive presentations, art and literature, music and literature, history and literature, philosophy and literature, the human condition and literature, etymology and word play, and on, and on, and on... All the things that give school, learning, life meaning and depth - the things that help us to give shape to our amorphous existence on this planet.

I mean it's like teaching students only to add and subtract over and over again. Nevermind the
beauty of defining the world in the specific terms that mathematics requires ...and then comparing it to how other disciplines define or describe the world. Just give us the basics - what is the main idea of the story, what is the meaning of this specific word in paragraph three, who would most likely agree with this story? UGH, what a dry, ugly way to read a story, especially at the academic age and level of my students.

I firmly believe that it is the "fun" times in school that we remember the most (and influence us the most). Few people remember the time that they first learned long division. However, the shock when we realized that Peyton Farquhar really hadn't "escaped", or the puzzlement when we found that Richard Cory had done the "unthinkable", or the hitch in our breath when we first understood (really understood) the vision of a poem - those things stay with us forever. Those are the topics we should be discussing/testing not the facile, superficial questions on state-mandated tests.

Circle the wagons, ma...

"Circle the wagons, Ma! I think I see a band of consultants ridin' down on us!"



Well, the inspectors are here with that "kicking ass and taking names" look on their faces. They're ducking into and out of classrooms so fast that I think I'm watching a Marx Bros. movie. All we teachers can do is sit in our Potemkin Village classrooms hoping that they don't look behind the newly decorated bulletin boards and discover the sham that we teachers "must be" (because why would they be here if we weren't?). I feel like a subjugated ward of the state.

However, they too are guilty of a sham. How can they possibly know what is the one (or two) right teaching steps that we should take to immediately turn our high school around - "Show more student work." ..."Use fewer 'teacher-directed' lessons in your class." Yeah, right!

I think it's their sanctimonious certitude that bothers me the most. If they knew the answers - I mean REALLY knew the answers- the districts in which the state took control would be "flying high" in academic achievement. But those districts are still mired in the 10 percentile swamps of the state tests.

I could understand suggestions from the inspectors, but it seems that they spell suggestions d-i-r-e-c-t-i-v-e-s. But they, like us, know that failing districts are like "unhappy families"- each is failing in its own way, and usually for myriad reasons.

Moreover, it's presumptuous when anyone says that we know how to "fix" broken schools. If that were true, then there wouldn't be so many broken schools still out there.

Looking back at this blog, I realize that it is so very bitter in tone, but I'm getting very tired of all these "experts" who are so sure that their "simplistic" remedies will effortlessly solve our complex problems. I believe that failing schools can be fixed, but it will take hard work, time, and money. Remedies that most people don't want to hear or to acknowledge.

Surrender or Die!

Well, after seven years of declining state test scores, we are on the verge of being declared a failing school. The state dept. of education has sent in observers to evaluate the quality of the entire school - administrators, teachers, students, physical plant, community, etc. However, I have a feeling that only the administrators (central and of our school) and the teachers will be held accountable. All others will be granted dispensation. I'm not saying that staff is not responsible for some of the lack of progress, but this "play" has many actors and, to paraphrase the Prince in Romeo and Juliet, "... all should be Punished"*


*Pronounced - Punis-'shed- because that way it sounds more Shakespearean!

Where's the rest of me?

I'm dying the "Death of a Thousand Acronyms". Everywhere and everyday I am constantly reminded of my and my students' accountability to the PSAT, and/or SAT and/or the ACT, and the HSPT (High School Proficiency Test), or, if they don't pass it the SRA's (now renamed the AHRA's), and/or the NEAP (National Educational Assessment Program), or the CAPA ( I forget - but some monitoring program), and/or the HSTW (High Schools That Work), and the GPA (Grade Point Average), or the NMSQT (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test), or the ASVAB (Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery), the IQ test, not to mention the CAT's or the ERB's, and many, many more... . ARRRGHHHHHHHHH

Two things are evident to me with all these acronyms:

1. With all this Jargon (some might say Argot) somebody's hiding something...

2. With all these extra programs it's evident that public schools aren't seen as bastions of learning, but as reservoirs of "mineable" data.

and, as a corollary to #'s 1 & 2, there's a lot of money to be made serving up "Alphabet Soup"...

"Three card Monte"

It seems to me that one of the hallmarks of troubled schools is the inability to allocate resources efficiently and effectively. Perhaps this is the effect of ineffective or non-existent planning or in lack of continuity. In any case, failing or troubled schools always seem to engage in practices which are at cross purposes to practices which would actually allieviate or solve problems. One might say that they are, "Robbing Peter to pay Paul," but it's actually worse than that. They are "Robbing Simon to pay Peter to get better credit from Paul." Everything is reactive - very little is pro-active.