Re: W Stands for Women

Posted by give me a break on 11/01/04

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On 10/29/04, Stan wrote:
> Please teach to the test. If we do then our children will at
> least learn something. MOST high school graduates in
> Washington state, if they do finish school and graduate, have
> to take additional remedial classes to attend the two year
> schools not to mention being behind the curve when they
attempt
> to enter a 4 year school.

Rewarding and punishing by test results was discredited in the
late 1800s. Current uses of high- stakes, state mandated tests
in all but Iowa violate professional standards for test
development and use.

For example, high stakes testing programs (those with serious
consequences for students, teachers, schools, districts) use a
fallible single standard and measure of student achievement, a
practice specifically condemned by the professional code of test
developers, test publishers, and educational researchers. Also,
states have been and now will be more compelled to prepare and
use tests without adequate time and attention to proper and
justifiable test development. More bad practices will be heaped
on already widespread bad practices in evaluating student
achievement and schools.

The research over the past two decades indicates test based
educational reforms do not lead to better educational policies
and practices. Indeed, such testing often leads to educationally
unjust consequences and unsound practices. These include
increased drop out rates, teacher and administrator de-
professionalization, loss of curricular integrity, increased
cultural insensitivity, and disproportionate allocation of
educational resources into testing programs, not into hiring
qualified teachers and providing enriching educational programs.

The winners, with the passage of this bill, are advocates of
standardized teaching and learning, and the few large
corporations that sell tests and test based curricula, not
children.


>
> I just want more children to learn some basics, vs feeling
good
> about themselves because at least they tried.
>
> On 10/29/04, give me a break wrote:
>>> The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is in prison,
>> not
>>> in power. President Bush is pursuing our enemies and
>>> expanding the frontiers of liberty to extend peace and
>>> freedom throughout our world.
>>
>> no, irag is more unsafe than it has been in quite some time,
>> or have you not been watching the news. and this myth of
>> expanding the frontiers of liberty is a joke, he is
>> following the status quo of upping the number one industry
>> in our country....defense.
>>
>>> • Growing the Economy & Reducing the Tax Burden. Steady
>>> leadership has transformed a recession into a recovery.
>>> Three times President Bush has provided tax relief to pull
>>> our economy out of recession and return it to a path of
>>> growth.
>>
>> he is also the first president in 70+ years to lose jobs.
>>
>>> • Reforming Education So That No Child is Left Behind.
>>> President Bush submitted his framework for education
>>> reform, No Child Left Behind, three days after taking
>>> office and secured overwhelming bipartisan passage less
>>> than a year later. It is the most dramatic education
>> reform
>>> in a generation and reflects the President’s belief that
>>> every child can learn. Every student will be held to high
>>> standards, and every school will be held accountable to
>>> parents for results. Parents with children in low-
>>> performing schools have new options for their child
>>> including transferring to a better public school or
>>> securing extra assistance from one of 1,600 state-approved
>>> tutoring providers. Backing up these reforms are historic
>>> levels of federal funding, including a 49 percent increase
>>> for elementary and secondary education funding, 52 percent
>>> increase in support for disadvantaged students and 75
>>> percent increase for special education.
>>
>> this is the one that really sticks in my craw. The research
>> over the past two decades indicates test based educational
>> reforms do not lead to better educational policies and
>> practices. Indeed, such testing often leads to educationally
>> unjust consequences and unsound practices. These include
>> increased drop out rates, teacher and administrator de-
>> professionalization, loss of curricular integrity, increased
>> cultural insensitivity, and disproportionate allocation of
>> educational resources into testing programs, not into hiring
>> qualified teachers and providing enriching educational
>> programs.
>>
>> The winners, with the passage of this bill, are advocates of
>> standardized teaching and learning, and the few large
>> corporations that sell tests and test based curricula, not
>> children.
>>
>> While the challenges of contemporary schooling are serious,
>> the simplistic application of tests to make decisions about
>> children, teachers, and schools impedes student learning.
>> Comparisons of schools and students based on test scores
>> promotes teaching to the test and undoubtedly cause some
>> teachers and principals to cheat, understandably, in order
>> to make their schools look good on the tests. Punitively
>> oriented testing programs do not improve the quality of
>> schools; diminish disparities in academic achievement along
>> gender, race, or class lines; or move the country forward in
>> moral, social or economic terms. We support accountability,
>> but not test driven accountability that draws teachers and
>> children into a corruption of education.
>>
>> The most serious problem with testing based educational
>> reform is its singularity of voice, its insistence that
>> education be evaluated and improved in a single way.
>>
>>

Posts on this thread, including this one

• W Stands for Women, 10/22/04, by stan.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 10/23/04, by Mom.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 10/27/04, by Stan.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 10/27/04, by Yes, Women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• Re: W Stands for Women In American and Around the World, 10/27/04, by You didn't even read this. More for Women in America.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 10/29/04, by give me a break.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 10/29/04, by Stan.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 10/31/04, by Rosie.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 11/01/04, by give me a break.
• Re: W Stands for Women, 3/18/05, by T.E.C. - Iowa.
• Re: TEC stands for?, 3/20/05, by bob.