Here’s a simple principle: at the least, schools should be expected to help all students make a year’s worth of progress over the course of a year—even students that start school in September two or three grade levels above. And we should reserve our greatest praise (and perhaps rewards) for schools that accelerate the progress of all of their students and help each one reach his or her full potential. And that principle should apply to all of our children, regardless of the color of their skin, the size of their parents’ pocketbook, or their zip code. Anything else strikes me as unfair, unkind—and politically unsustainable.
Are public schools for all kids, or just some kids?
and, from the Heartland Institute:
Clowes: Is there any reason why students in schools with high concentrations of poverty should learn any less than students in an affluent district?
Sanders: Interestingly, I've caught the most political heat from some of the schools in affluent areas, where we've exposed what I call "slide and glide." One of the top-dollar districts in the state had always bragged about its test scores, but our measurements showed that their average second-grader was in the 72nd percentile. By the time those children were sixth-graders, they were in the 44th percentile. Under our value-added scheme, the district was profiled in the bottom 10 percent of districts in state. They were not happy. You'd think I had nuked the place.
With our value-added approach, we can demonstrate that our measure of school effectiveness is totally unrelated to traditional socioeconomic indicators. We have more than 1,300 elementary schools in this state; their effectiveness is totally unrelated to the racial composition of the school or the percentage of children in the federal free and reduced-price lunch program. That's looking at measures of progress, not at raw test scores.
You shouldn't hold teachers and principals of school districts accountable for things over which they have no control. You should hold them accountable for those things they do have control over. Schools and teachers don't have control over the achievement level when children walk in the door, but they do have control over how much that level is raised during the year.
If that is sustained over time, it becomes like compound interest, and what you see is populations of children constantly rising to higher and higher levels of achievement in later grades, regardless of where they started.
interview with William Sanders
Two years ago my dad passed away. It happened during the school day and I left suddenly. After two days I returned and all my kids knew by then what had happened.
ReplyDeleteMost of them came up to me at different times during the day to console me in some way. I was stunned at their kind thoughts (I'm kind of a hard ass) but I was blown away by what I learned from them.
Many of them consoled me by relating very personal tragedies in their own young lives. This was a middle school and kids were telling me shocking things: "My dad was killed 2 years ago.", "My cousin was shot in the head when I was 4.", "My father got stabbed. He was in jail.". Child after child came to me with some sort of tragic tale.
All of these kids were struggling academically but were just normal sweet happy kids outwardly. There was no way before this happened that I would have thought they were carrying around this kind of baggage.
I realized after a time that this baggage is a huge factor in learning. It's not race or economic status. I don't even think teachers or curriculum are as significant when it comes to explaining why some kids fall behind. It's baggage! Baggage is huge.
When kids are preoccupied with anything it's toxic to learning. It could be a family tragedy. It could be that you're 13 and you're the only responsible person in your home. Or it could be you are autistic or afflicted with ADHD. It's stress and it's poison.
Anybody that looks at a group of kids and proclaims them unfit for learning or keeping up with the others is mistaking correlation for causation. They are the ignorant ones, projecting their lack of knowledge and narrow perceptions onto kids that just need more time or understanding to get it.
When we force kids into arbitrary curriculum and testing cohorts we are just increasing the stress on what may well be a person who is already overstressed.
Any time you can move these kids forward they get a huge burst of self confidence that gives them the energy to move on. It gives them a taste of success. Any time you crush them with an inappropriate test you're just telling them that in addition to having a sucky life you're a loser too.
"at the least, schools should be expected to help all students make a year’s worth of progress over the course of a year—even students that start school in September two or three grade levels above."
ReplyDeleteAmen to this!!!
But my children's school's administration told me that this isn't a reasonable expectation. That their job is to get the kids to learn that standard for that grade. If the kids know it in September, they can develop leadership skills (this is educator speak for reading under their desk all year). And my kids should learn to be happy when other children learn the material. Or my kids can just go to school somewhere else.
One teacher told me it isn't his job to work with the kids who are proficient. (That is California edspeak for passing their grade).
I don't know how many times I have been told that public school isn't for bright kids.
Jane
Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteThe conversations you cite are just so wrong! It makes my head explode to think there are teachers with this attitude.
Unfortunately, teaching to standards is an all to common copout. The standards are suggested MINIMUM requirements in every state I've researched.
"I don't know how many times I have been told that public school isn't for bright kids."
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard it put quite this bluntly. The minimums that Paul talks about become maximim targets. As I've mentioned before, our town is "high performing" in getting kids over the state minimum, and they translate this into "quality education".
In K-8, full-inclusion is the primary goal in our town, not academics. They would never admit to that. They think they can do both, but this can only be done by redefining education. That's why over 20 percent of our kids go to other schools. Many dismiss this as elitism. When parents move their kids to private schools, they never ask why. They didn't ask us.
Private K-8 schools were very rare 40 years ago. Now, they are quite popular. When we started looking at schools, all of the headmasters new exactly why we were there. Many still suffer from Everyday Math syndrome, but at least the expectations are higher.
I developed a better sense about what is happening when we decided to bring our son back to the public school in our town in 6th grade. I got to talk with the principal who seemed much more willing to meet individual academic needs, but this couldn't happen in the lower grades. Our lower grades have a very wide spread of abilities. By definition.
It's hard for me to even think about a year's worth of progress when our schools set low expectations and are going in the wrong direction. I don't want acceleration of MathLand or TERC or Everyday Math. I can't think about ZPD when when our schools ignore it or redefine it. Our schools claim to challenge each individual, but they really can't do that.