Focus Paper Response
I read Adryon Wong's paper on the No Child Left Behind Act, largely because I know it's a big deal but I know I don't know enough about what the rules are and what the results have been thus far.
Adryon says that students run the risk of spending too much time being educated for a state test and too little time "being genuinely educated." Unfortunately, that's the part where I keep getting stuck. Who makes the rules about what a "genuine" education consists of?? One complaint is that in an effort to teach to the test, schools spend less time on physical education, fine arts, foreign language, and vocational studies. The problem is, it's all important. Teaching to a state test is not going to encourage individuatlized instruction, and it's certainly going to discourage teacher creativity and spontaneity, but I have a really hard time saying it's a bad idea. Even in the brief "education" training that I've had in the last two weeks, we've talked a bit about this. In the video we saw we decided that the important part was not which reading system was implemented in critical-needs schools but that all the teachers and the administrator were working towards a common goal. Yes, the items covered on the accountability tests are inevitably limiting and limited, but it is a clearly defined set of competencies that gives EVERY teacher something to work with and something to work towards. The problem of individual school accountability is not solved by this act, but it is at least addressed. If every school knows what areas it needs to improve, that gives every teacher a concrete goal to address. And even if, one day, every student passes that standardized test and we realize that the test could have been better and the students might still not know all the right things, at least they know something, and at least everybody's moving in the same direction towards the same goals.
And I realize how this sounds, and I'm aware of all those things that people HAVE to learn to be successful that just can't be measured, but I do think that there needs to be a standard. Even if it's not perfect and even if it stifles somebody's creativity, there is no right way to address this problem. I was thinking again about the two literacy programs that the critical-needs schools in the videos implemented, and yes, to the creators of those programs it probably would be a little insulting to have us say that either one works just as well, the point is to have a program, to dedicate resources and energy in a similar direction, but I think that that IS the point. And on a larger scale, that's still the point. Education is one of the most ill-defined topics in our society, nobody really knows what it is or how to do it, and we're unlikely to reach a consensus anytime soon. In the meantime, some things on those state tests are probably worth knowing and some probably aren't, and you're sure as heck not going to get a job because you know how to form a simile or identify a paradox, but it IS important to know how to read and it IS important to be able to do basic math and if state standards push teachers to ALL have their students up to SOME kind of standard ... arguable as that standard may be, I think it's bound to help.
Contradictory opinions welcome.
Adryon says that students run the risk of spending too much time being educated for a state test and too little time "being genuinely educated." Unfortunately, that's the part where I keep getting stuck. Who makes the rules about what a "genuine" education consists of?? One complaint is that in an effort to teach to the test, schools spend less time on physical education, fine arts, foreign language, and vocational studies. The problem is, it's all important. Teaching to a state test is not going to encourage individuatlized instruction, and it's certainly going to discourage teacher creativity and spontaneity, but I have a really hard time saying it's a bad idea. Even in the brief "education" training that I've had in the last two weeks, we've talked a bit about this. In the video we saw we decided that the important part was not which reading system was implemented in critical-needs schools but that all the teachers and the administrator were working towards a common goal. Yes, the items covered on the accountability tests are inevitably limiting and limited, but it is a clearly defined set of competencies that gives EVERY teacher something to work with and something to work towards. The problem of individual school accountability is not solved by this act, but it is at least addressed. If every school knows what areas it needs to improve, that gives every teacher a concrete goal to address. And even if, one day, every student passes that standardized test and we realize that the test could have been better and the students might still not know all the right things, at least they know something, and at least everybody's moving in the same direction towards the same goals.
And I realize how this sounds, and I'm aware of all those things that people HAVE to learn to be successful that just can't be measured, but I do think that there needs to be a standard. Even if it's not perfect and even if it stifles somebody's creativity, there is no right way to address this problem. I was thinking again about the two literacy programs that the critical-needs schools in the videos implemented, and yes, to the creators of those programs it probably would be a little insulting to have us say that either one works just as well, the point is to have a program, to dedicate resources and energy in a similar direction, but I think that that IS the point. And on a larger scale, that's still the point. Education is one of the most ill-defined topics in our society, nobody really knows what it is or how to do it, and we're unlikely to reach a consensus anytime soon. In the meantime, some things on those state tests are probably worth knowing and some probably aren't, and you're sure as heck not going to get a job because you know how to form a simile or identify a paradox, but it IS important to know how to read and it IS important to be able to do basic math and if state standards push teachers to ALL have their students up to SOME kind of standard ... arguable as that standard may be, I think it's bound to help.
Contradictory opinions welcome.
posted by Miss Marshwater at 4:29 PM
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