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Very interesting words yesterday on the NCLB reauthorization front. If you missed it, check out the full posting today on Eduflack:
blog.eduflack.com/2007/07/31/reading-between-the-nclb-lines.aspx
To sum up, House Education Committee Chairman George Miller focused a good portion of his remarks on concerns regarding the testing requirements under NCLB. Hoping to appease the vocal critics of the law, he called for expanding some of the tools we use to measure student achievement, singling out high school graduation rates and AP exam scores.
In doing so, Miller has declared that his version of NCLB will bring high schools into the fold. For the past five years, the NCLB debate has been focused on elementary reading and reading, math, and science tests for 4th through 8th graders. By adding high school-based assessments to the law, Miller is making a strong statement about the need for reauthorization, the ability to improve the law, and the desire to ensure that learning occurs well after the 8th grade.
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The most interesting element coming from Miller was not what he said, but the reform posed between the lines of his words. While Miller was careful to be mindful of many of those protecting the status quo and fighting NCLB and its achievement measures, he made a very interesting statement. He said, in addition to NCLB's reading, math, and science testing requirements, schools should be allowed to use measures such as graduation rates and AP test passage rates.
Why is this so interesting to Eduflack? Simply put, Miller is advocating for expanding the reach of NCLB to the high schools.
VERY interesting.
Wouldn't such a requirement seem, to you, to give high schools a stronger hand when it comes to pressuring K-8 schools to produce better-prepared students?
Currently, the accountability measures in NCLB focus on fourth through eighth grade.
This is something I wonder about.
Niki Hayes told me that schools have to have SUPERB 1st grade teachers. (That is, first grade teachers are more important than 2nd and 3rd grade teachers...)
I'm sure she's right about that.
Given my own experience with math I would now say that 4th grade teachers are critical in that subject (assuming that's the point when fractions are studied seriously).
AP exams
I'd like to see that.
There are plenty of schools out there gaming the AP system now, it seems to me.
Putting unprepared kids into AP courses and letting them fail the test isn't a step forward.
Of course, I've just heard from a high school parent here that one of the AP teachers at the high school tells students up front that he/she won't be helping students "prepare for the test."
This student spent the entire year online trying to prep for the AP test & now actively dislikes the subject.
"We don't do test prep"
Isn't George Miller the one who's holding hearings against Reading First?
The American people have a very strong sense that No Child Left Behind is not fair, it is not flexible and it is not funded.
I disagree.
Some civil rights groups have expressed concern that such changes could weaken the law. "In our experience, institutions that are held accountable for too many things are, in the end, accountable for nothing," several groups that back the law, such as the Citizens' Commission for Civil Rights and the Education Trust, wrote in a recent letter to Miller.
I love this!
Temple says she can prove this is true with animal welfare.
Plants that use her 10-item animal welfare audit have far better animal welfare than plants with 100-item audit lists.
What this speaks to is the K-12 continuum. Much of the focus has been on elementary education, because without those building blocks, you can't succeed in middle or high school. And we've all seen the stats on what happens if a child isn't reading at grade level by 4th grade.
There's been some focus on middle schools, to see if we can apply what we know about elementary ed to those kids who have slipped through the cracks. Most of the federal effort is intervention, but currently that's where the testing is.
With this, I hypothesize, we're finally recognizing that the full K-12 experience is important. You get building blocks in elementary, start identifying your interesting and fixing any holes in your learning (with the testing to see where those holes are). Then in high school you continue to pursue your interests, taking classes relevant to them and to your future plans (college and/or career).
Now, Miller is talking about assessing our schools (and our kids) both in the middle and secondary years. That's great. And it reinforced the need to truly educate, and not teach to the test. Students need to retain what is assessed in the middle grades, because their high school success depends on it.
Whether it all falls out this way remains to be seen.
Completely agree on AP. It isn't simply a substitute for advanced/honors classes. I would say, though, that most students can benefit from taking an AP class, particularly if they are thinking college. The question becomes whether they take the test or not.
Teachers shouldn't be teaching to the AP test. This is about providing knowledge that students will use as foundations in future postsecondary classes. Getting a 4 on AP biology does you no good if you can't make sense of a biochem class at the state U.
And remember, many colleges now refusing to give college credits for AP exams.
Yep, Miller is the same congressman who hosted the RF hearings.
More importantly, he was the driving force in 2001 behind the Highly Qualified Teacher provisions.
I must put in my 2 cents worth on the AP exams. My recent high school graduate took 6 AP Exams in total. She received scores of 5 on four of the tests and scores of 4 on two of the tests.
I'll comment on her AP Spanish test as an example. Her teacher was marvelous. Yes, her goal was to prepare the students for the AP test, but they also learned an amazing amount of Spanish. My daughter plans to continue with Spanish in college, and her foundation in solid.
As a matter of fact, the AP Spanish teacher at the high school is in communication with the Spanish departments at both of our local universities in terms of constant improvement as to how to make sure her students are prepared for continuing to study Spanish in college.
More importantly, he was the driving force in 2001 behind the Highly Qualified Teacher provisions.
What are your thoughts about this provision?
As a matter of fact, the AP Spanish teacher at the high school is in communication with the Spanish departments at both of our local universities in terms of constant improvement as to how to make sure her students are prepared for continuing to study Spanish in college.
That's fantastic.
The school board attorney with whom I've been sporadically in touch says that this (K-12/college alignment) is the way to go about lobbying one's district for improvement.
She says, rightly, that K-12 & college aren't aligned, and that this is the most productive & positive way to frame the issue of school quality.
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