(I don't know why Elizabeth doesn't blog these items, since I often do after she emails them to me....)
There's a nicely depressing article in today's NYT about public school teachers (in this case, English teachers) teaching to the state test. It begins by talking about a wonderful graduate-level course on writing that a high school teacher took, and how much she liked it:
And so, when Ms. Karnes returns to Allendale High School to teach English this fall, she will use the new writing techniques she learned and abandon the standard five-paragraph essay formula. Right?"Oh, no," said Ms. Karnes. "There's no time to do creative writing and develop authentic voice. That would take weeks and weeks. There are three essays on the state test and we start prepping right at the start of the year. We have to teach to the state test" (the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, known as MEAP).
"MEAP is not what writing is about, but it's what testing is about," Ms. Karnes said. "And we know if we teach them the five-paragraph essay formula, they'll pass that test. There's a lot of pressure to do well on MEAP. It makes the district seem good, helps real estate values."In Michigan, there is added pressure. If students pass the state tests, they receive $2,500 college scholarships, and in Ms. Karnes's middle-class district, families need that money. "I can't see myself fighting against MEAP," she said. "It would hurt my students too much. It's a dilemma. It may not be the best writing, but it gets them the money."
Funny....I started using a new curriculum (modeling...the ONLY physics curriculum endorsed by the NSC), and the school was enthusiastic, until it saw that it didn't help standardized test scores. Now I need to make adjustments "to align my teaching to the standardized tests". Irrelevent as to how well it helps kids think.
It's definitely not a New York or Michigan thing.
The sad thing is, the more accelerated students are really hurt, since they can be motoring along fine, scoring very well, but if the lower acheiving students don't improve, money is pulled from gifted education to go towards remedial education....under NCLB, failing/probation schools are required to earmark a certain percent of their funds toward the lower acheiving groups of students, so in other words, the smart kids are penalized and the lower achieving kids are given more money, which sadly does not help s much as one would think.
Posted by: Tom at July 13, 2005 11:53 PM