Jim Ryan has a piece posted at Slate on how to fix NCLB. It's worth reading in its entirety, but, not surprisingly, I disagree with some of his points. In the interest of space, I've paraphrased some of his key points; I hope I've been fair to his arguments, but, again, I would recommend going back to his original article.
Expand testing beyond Reading/Math/Science, to include history, literature, geography, art, and music. I think this is a terrible idea. I'm a huge advocate of standardized testing, but I actually favor scrapping science testing on a national level. Reading and math are special is because (1) they are fundamental to learning every other subject, and (2) they can be tested relatively cheaply and objectively compared to other subjects. On a more practical level, history, lit, art, and music curricula is decided at the locally - which is exactly as it should be. Testing for these subjects on a national level essentially establishes a national curriculum; if you thought standards are lax now, wait until you see the pablum produced by a national curriculum which caters to every interest group from every last corner of the country. And if you think you're annoyed by evolution/ID debates, just wait until we have to decide what goes into the history books.
Administer fewer tests. Ryan suggests testing only in 4th, 8th, and 11th grades. I think Ryan has it backwards; he wants comprehensive tests on many subjects every few years. Tests can be a great diagnostic tool, but they're only useful if you're getting data quickly and regularly. It makes much more sense to test a few subjects quickly, and often.
I think what we need are short, multiple choice tests on reading & math, given three times a year at each grade level. Each test should take no longer than 60 minutes each, and I like multiple-choice because they can be graded by machine very quickly. This means that a school should be able to administer, grade, and report the tests in a single day, allowing you to (a) schedule them on a Saturday to avoid interfering with the school year, and (b) get the results back almost immediately, allowing you to diagnose problem areas and adjust your teaching accordingly.
Rank schools; don't prescribe punishments. - I actually mostly agree with him on this one. Simply labelling a school as failing is the bureaucratic equivalent of giving a student an 'F' on his final without marking any of the wrong answers. Going back to my earlier point, what we need is a diagnostic allowing every school in the country to see what they are doing well, and what they are doing poorly. He also mentions another good idea: setting a uniform standards on measuring graduation rates.
Teachers and Money - This is the most curious passage. He specifically mentions low supplies of math/science teachers, and teachers in poor/minority districts, but offers a simplistic answer of 'more money'. He hints at it, but stops just short of what I believe is the full answer: 'more money, but not for everyone.' In other words, differential pay scales that reflect actual supply and demand for teachers. This is very likely to mean significantly higher pay for math/science teachers, and slightly lower pay for humanities teachers. Of course, I suspect that this is just the surface of the problem, which is exactly where he continues...
Teachers and Prestige. - Again, I think he gets it half-right when he says "respect, prestige, and decent working conditions also matter.", but I think he gets it wrong when he continues, "[the Federal government] can create a teaching program that restores prestige to the profession." Again, I think he gets it completely backwards - prestige is not something that can be created out of the ether, but something that has to be earned and developed from the ground up. This brings us back to a recurring topic here at KTM: the professionalization of teachers and teacher training. That is a subject far too deep to cover here, so I'll save that for a separate post (which I hope to complete sometime in this century).
I don't like the article because fixing education is translated into fixing NCLB. NCLB is a last resort way to achieve minimal proficiency. The problem is that NCLB becomes the maximum goal, not a minimum level. Our schools are "high achieving" on getting almost all kids over this low hurdle. The school translates this to mean "quality education". I've seen it in our local paper.
ReplyDelete"The elaborate law requires schools to test the bejeezus out of elementary- and middle-school students in reading and math, to test them again in high school, and to sprinkle in a few science tests along the way."
The last I checked, schools have always tested the bejeezus out of kids, homework too. The question is whether schools do anything with the information. Schools could use Singapore Math and test every week, but if they let kids get to fifth grade without knowing their times table, then what good is it?
I find it interesting that choice and charter schools are not mentioned once in the article. Then again, that's what happens when you see education through the eyes of NCLB.
I tried to read the whole article, but there are too many bits like this:
ReplyDelete---benefits of high-quality preschool, especially for children from poorer families, easily outweigh the costs.
uh huh. same meme, different day. Where's the evidence of this? Over and over again, we've seen that it's not substantiated. Could it be? Well, that would require knowing what about schooling is effective and what isn't.
I liked d-ed reckoning's take:
http://d-edreckoning.blogspot.com/2008/04/slate-on-nclb.html
In control theory, there’s this wonderful treatment of a not so obvious reality. Without belaboring the math, it basically says that if you have a function that transforms something, you need to sample the output of the function and feedback an adjustment to the input in order to keep the whole system stable. Unstable systems fail (sometimes catastrophically).
ReplyDeleteSo applying this theory to a classroom with a really good teacher you can picture something like; little empty minds in (the function input), lessons applied (the transformation), formative assessments (sampling), and individualized adjustments (the feedback loop) by the teacher.
My problem with NCLB is not with the testing but how the results are applied. Sticking with my analogy, the testing is nothing more than standardized (to a degree) sampling. The problem is that the measurement, the sample, is not applied to a feedback loop, its applied to the function. Results are not used to say, “Oh look, this child doesn’t understand common denominators yet. What adjustments can we make for this child?”
The results are used to take a big meat axe to the school district when a hundred tiny little scalpels would suffice. I work in a ‘failing’ district and I can tell you first hand that we are running an open loop control system that is wildly out of control. We have consultants pouring over us like hot fudge at an ice cream shop.
Their proscriptions always miss the mark and do not tweak the feedback loops. They are fussing about the scratches in the paint while the buildings burn. One of my favorite ‘solutions’ was the year of the bulletin board. We were, I kid you not, beat up for a year on the quality of our bulletin boards. We had bulletin board walkthroughs. We had bulletin boards so covered with crap that kids stopped looking at them. We had whole classroom blocks devoted to putting up a quality bulletin board.
Meanwhile, inside the classrooms, sixth graders that can’t add single digit numbers are being force fed a curriculum (the transform function) totally unsuited to where they are at by teachers who are not provided the sample data until 5 months after the testing for a class they no longer have.
It’s like trying to make course corrections for a rocket after it has crashed. It reminds of when I was a little kid playing at driving a car while sitting in a cardboard box holding an old bicycle wheel. The damn wheel never turned the box but it sure was funl!
So, I guess a Bode Diagram is out of the question.
ReplyDeleteThere is little feedback control in our schools. Testing results go straight onto report cards. It doesn't get fed back anywhere. That's because they think the input control is optimal already. Actually, they think the control starts in the home and report cards are the feedback to the parents. What the school does is part of the unchanging black box.
With NCLB, however, they are forced to apply a little bit of feedback to the system, but they can only use their favorite problem solving technique - guess and check.
"Reading and math are special is because (1) they are fundamental to learning every other subject, and (2) they can be tested relatively cheaply and objectively compared to other subjects."
ReplyDeleteI agree with the first, and it's a great point that many people miss. The are fundamental, the foundation of all other learning.
On the second, it is true for math, but multiple choice tests can mask reading problems of someone who's very apt at learning sight words, and, especially depending on the question format, can be testing IQ instead of reading ability.
You really need to do a bit of oral reading to see how someone reads--it doesn't take much, 20 - 30 well selected words read in isolation in a list should all you to need if you carefully pick words that include all the major sound/spelling patterns. (Sentences allow students to guess from context and should not be used when diagnosing reading.)
Actually, a spelling test is probably a better measure of reading ability than current silent reading tests.
ReplyDeleteThey've gotta test everything, IMO. It's the only way to induce schools to teach everything -- or to teach content at all, given the fact that ed schools prefer students not be taught content at all beyond the basics.
ReplyDeleteThe states all have their own tests so we won't be seeing a national curriculum any time soon.