Public school system- not happy

[ajwomic]

We moved our kids to private this year for that reason. I felt the testing was out of control and overshadowing learning. They did not teach anything not tested by the state test, so there were huge gaps. The standards were designed as a minimum standard, not the end all/be all. Although my kids did learn a lot in public and their experience was generally good, their perception of education was to pass the test. The funny thing is, while I was against the excessive testing and emphasis on grades, I am the one having trouble getting used to private. We are a Charlotte Mason school, which is child centered and plays down assessments. They do a lot of oral assessments or writing down what they know instead of formal tests in young grades. My first graded does not have "tests". Her teacher will just informally give them a worksheet that she takes up to "see what they know." No grades given, but calls them up to correct misconceptions. Report cards are Excellent, Satisfactory, and Needs Improvement. In 4th, they have tests on math, spelling, vocab, writing, but not science and Social studies. Those are still informally assessed. Because I am used to public...I find myself wanting the number grades and tests! LOL! It is why I left, but it is what I am used to and what is comfortable. I can't win for losing! But seriously, we are happy where we are, it is just an adjustment!!!!

A

 

[golfgal]

I agree completely. In addition, even though they are exempt from most of these requirements the data doesn't support the idea that they are better than standard public schools.

As for saying people have choice to send their kids to private school or to homeschool, that certainly reeks of priviledge.

Not always--many private schools have scholarships available and there is nothing that says that kids HAVE to be schooled from 8 am-3PM, you can school them in the evenings after work if you can't stay home with them...

I agree, around here the charter and magnet schools are not very good schools. It has nothing to do with the ability to group, etc. and everything to do with the families that attend those schools. Many of those families what the touchy/feely aspects of a charter/magnet without any real accountability. Their test scores, for the most part, are dismal.

 

[NY Disney fan]

As for saying people have choice to send their kids to private school or to homeschool, that certainly reeks of priviledge.

I agree. When I was a little girl we had so many educational choices. Now that I'm adult, you see the sharp divide between rich and poor. In my neck of the woods you either have public school or elite private. Nothing in between. We USED to have Catholic schools but they have all closed (in my area). Catholic schools are rare if at all. Homeschool is only an option if one parent stays home and is interested in doing it.

 

[RadioNate]

Florida has notoriously bad public schools. Education there is a mess and all the proposed "fixes" are just making it worse.

My DS went to Seminole County Schools for 1st-3rd grade. It is considered one of the better of the Orlando area districts.

Florida curriculum is standardized state-wide. I'm interested in what the 6 tests are in because there aren't even 6 subjects in the 1st grade curriculum. Language arts, reading and math, that's it. Science and social studies are integrated into the other subjects.

Most school in the area do an AR program and I know my DS took LOTS of AR tests but there is a general small requirement to meet that is done at the child's discretion.

 

[princessmom29]

A friend of mine, who is a teacher, posted this on Facebook this week:

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND---The Football Version

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship, their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!

3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

This is it exactly. Totally unrealistic.
I personally do mind weekly tests for DD. They let me know what she is learning or not learning, and promote accountability for the material, HER accountability, not the teacher's. I think this is where the NCLB model falls apart. When you tie a teacher's pay or job to the performance of students on one or 2 benchmark tests, or course the teachers end up teaching to the test. Expecting every child to perfrom to grade level proficiency is totally unrealistic and setting schools up for failure.

 

[bettymae1121]

Okay, so I dont want to rant and rave, but I am so unhappy right now. I will sum it up by saying that we moved down to FL almost 2yr ago and have elementary age kids. We did not realize how unhappy we would be with the public school system. It is like they took the No Child Left Behind initiative and went nuts. My first grader takes 6 tests a week, every week. I will just say, I am not a fan of standardized testing and the extremes.
Any thoughts or experiences with other states public school systems??
Thanks, just wanting to vent and share info.

This is exactly why my BFF left FL, she was a teacher down there and the testing drove her nuts! There were other reasons why she moved too (wanted to be closer to family here in IL), but the FL school system was a huge factor!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

If this is just run of the mill testing to measure if the student has understood concepts taught that week, that is not a big deal.

If it is one of those FCAT training things--it bugs many parents and even some students.

The only way around that in Florida is to send your student to private school or to homeschool them. I'm not saying that as a high and mighty response--it just is truly the only way to get out of it.

If you are waiting for things to change, it won't. Florida is very hung up on grading the schools and they need those test scores to do that. I had some fellow dance moms once (not the kind on tv ) who were teachers. In the early grades, they mentioned "dibble" tests a lot. They also mentioned at times some other assessments that were mandated. I have no idea what those are. They didn't like them because it really took valuable classroom time. So OP--you are not alone in your disdain for them.

I do know that there are teachers who just do their best to work around these assessments. Hang in there. It stinks. But please know that for the most part, teachers are just trying to do their best through all this red tape.

I truly believe that Florida public schools would have a much better academic reputation if it weren't for all the NCLB nonsense.

Another suggestion that I have, perhaps for next year. Check and see if there is a school of choice in your area. Often those are by lottery headache and registration for said lottery is just around the corner. I am not sure when. I would check your county website immediately and see what these schools are and do what you can to waitlist for those. Then hope for the best--that your number gets called.

It won't totally remove your child out of the NCLB nonsense. But what it will do is give them a more worthwhile education experience.

And the FCAT just needs to retire.

 

[iheartdisney]

I miss the Florida school system. My kids were actually challenged there.
In Kindergarten, they were expected to be writing sentences by Christmas time.
Here in California it is October and many of the children in my DD's Kindergarten class are still struggling with their names. I WISH California would challenge the kids to learn like Florida and Virginia did. it seems like a "just meet the minimum" mentality here.

As for the testing, I remember doing spelling tests and math drills and end-of-unit quizzes when I was in elementary 20+ years ago, so I don't see how you can blame GWB, sorry.

 

[sweetdana]

If you do not like your school change it. Do not allow your children to suffer.

I have my daughter in a charter school, it costs me about 1 hour a day worth of driving, for pick up and drop off and well worth the costs. When I found out her KG was a 1/2 day and had up to 30 kids in the class, I spent a week going around until I found what would work for me. Up to 26 and 2 teachers. This yr in 1st grade she has 16 student and 2 full time teachers and it is Mont. as well.


If charters are not available, go for private, home school, or move.

I do not think all public schools are created =ly, but I think being a parent it is your responsibilty to do something about it. Find a new school.

 

[leighe]

but if we test them dont we know they are learning?

As a former teacher I can tell you that unfortunately they aren't testing to find out what kids are learning. They are testing so they'll have data to turn in for all of the massive amounts of paperwork required by the massive education bureaucracy. All those tests are helping a bunch of administrators justify their jobs (that usually pay wayyyyyyyy better than a teaching salary).

I wouldn't go so far as to say that none of the data is helpful - some of it is. But I always got much more authentic and meaningful feedback on how a kid was doing by working with that kid in class, grading homework, reading writing assignments, etc.

 

[NotUrsula]

While I think the football analogy is amusing, it isn't really all that apt. Teams sports mean that someone MUST lose, after all. Besides, it has already been done with athletics: President's Physical Fitness Test, anyone? When I was in grade school near a military base, the obsession with that thing was unreal. They made us do pullups and run 2 miles every single day (on a blacktopped parking lot) so that the school's score on it would be good. This was in coastal Mississippi, and I don't sweat. I used to collapse from the heat at least twice every week, but did they give me a pass? Nope.

I agree that NCLB as it stands is a disaster on wheels, but I feel that the sentiment behind it was valid. There ARE some really crappy schools in this country that are content to simply warehouse kids and not really try to teach them at all, and that is unacceptable in a country that purports to be all about opportunity. I don't claim to be an expert, and I don't have a magical solution (though obviously, NCLB in it's present form is not it), but I do think that the answer lies more in nationalizing a core curriculum and and proficiency standards for it. Every school in the nation should be covering the same basic material at a given grade level, and there should be a national standard promotion exam to demonstrate that you have mastered it; no local variations on the core. However, I'm all for allowing standardized alternative versions of the test for kids who are differently-abled or non-English speakers, if they are in situations where promotion is expected.

One thing that I would love to ban, however, is having extensive test-taking methodology lessons; that is a ridiculous waste of time. Set up some of the classroom tests to physically look like the standardized tests, and the kids will get that part on their own.

PS: A motivated kid can overcome any school instructional shortcoming with parental support, and sometimes even without it. I went to public school in what is literally one of the 5 poorest counties in the nation, with a dropout rate of over 50% (my HS class started out with over 450 students; only 112 graduated.) I spent a lot of time in libraries and tried out for every state university academic opportunity that existed, and I did just fine in the end.

 

[PeterPan09]

If this is just run of the mill testing to measure if the student has understood concepts taught that week, that is not a big deal.

If it is one of those FCAT training things--it bugs many parents and even some students.

The only way around that in Florida is to send your student to private school or to homeschool them. I'm not saying that as a high and mighty response--it just is truly the only way to get out of it.

If you are waiting for things to change, it won't. Florida is very hung up on grading the schools and they need those test scores to do that. I had some fellow dance moms once (not the kind on tv ) who were teachers. In the early grades, they mentioned "dibble" tests a lot. They also mentioned at times some other assessments that were mandated. I have no idea what those are. They didn't like them because it really took valuable classroom time. So OP--you are not alone in your disdain for them.

I do know that there are teachers who just do their best to work around these assessments. Hang in there. It stinks. But please know that for the most part, teachers are just trying to do their best through all this red tape.

I truly believe that Florida public schools would have a much better academic reputation if it weren't for all the NCLB nonsense.

Another suggestion that I have, perhaps for next year. Check and see if there is a school of choice in your area. Often those are by lottery headache and registration for said lottery is just around the corner. I am not sure when. I would check your county website immediately and see what these schools are and do what you can to waitlist for those. Then hope for the best--that your number gets called.

It won't totally remove your child out of the NCLB nonsense. But what it will do is give them a more worthwhile education experience.

And the FCAT just needs to retire.

State government in Florida is about the worst I've ever seen, and I lived in NJ!

Education is not a priority here and the results are very easy to see. At work one night I had a child of about 10-12 come to me wanting a refund for a defective machine. The paperwork requires a signature and an address and the child asked me "is Clearwater a state?" SERIOUSLY??? This is a child who is at least in 4th or 5th grade and you're telling me that she doesn't know what state she lives in???

However, state government is giving the people what they want. Low taxes. You can't have zero tax increases forever and not have something suffer. In this state, it's education.

 

[Coconut36]

A friend of mine, who is a teacher, posted this on Facebook this week:

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND---The Football Version

1. All teams must make the state playoffs and all MUST win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable. If after two years they have not won the championship, their footballs and equipment will be taken away UNTIL they do win the championship.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time even if they do not have the same conditions or opportunities to practice on their own. NO exceptions will be made for lack of interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities of themselves or their parents. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL!

3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren't interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.

Exactly!

NCLB is responsible for the increase in standardized testing, not the weekly testing that the OP is talking about.

I think this falls into the "you can't keep everybody happy" category. Teachers are constantly asked to justify the grades that are given, usually by parents who over-estimate their child's ability or performance. In the meantime, another group of parents is unhappy over the number of assessments that are given. It's a no win situation.

Totally agree. I had said they were darned if they did, darned if they didn't. You just can't win and I agree weekly assessments are very different from the standardized testing.

My take on it is, (I'm only talking about MY self and MY child, not in general), I believe it is my responsibility to teach my child how to solve the problems that school doesn't have time to teach them. For example: teaching them about God, compassion, teaching them how to cook and clean). Teaching them how to speak in full sentences and how to think things through. The schools just can't teach this (well not every school) So I take a lot of responsibility for educating my child and leave the hard-core skills to the school. I believe school is only one part of the eduational pie-chart. It is not the whole pie chart.

Absolutely agree. I do not believe my responsibility towards educating my children ends the moment they enter school..it continues always for me. From "filling in the gaps" to cover what school can't to finding ways to challenge or help as needed for my child..it's up to me not just the school. Sadly many parents just wash their hands of their kids when they enter school and the kids suffer for it. Mine attend/attended a Montessori preschool and I love how Montessori helps them focus on "life skills" along with their ABCs and 123s. They help prepare the class snack, clean up after themselves, learn to assist others..etc. We continue all those things in the home in one capacity or another..from chores and personal accountability to making sure they know (as it is age appropriate) to take care of themselves and others.

 

[Coconut36]

While I think the football analogy is amusing, it isn't really all that apt. Teams sports mean that someone MUST lose, after all. Besides, it has already been done with athletics: President's Physical Fitness Test, anyone? When I was in grade school near a military base, the obsession with that thing was unreal. They made us do pullups and run 2 miles every single day (on a blacktopped parking lot) so that the school's score on it would be good. This was in coastal Mississippi, and I don't sweat. I used to collapse from the heat at least twice every week, but did they give me a pass? Nope.

I agree that NCLB as it stands is a disaster on wheels, but I feel that the sentiment behind it was valid. There ARE some really crappy schools in this country that are content to simply warehouse kids and not really try to teach them at all, and that is unacceptable in a country that purports to be all about opportunity. I don't claim to be an expert, and I don't have a magical solution (though obviously, NCLB in it's present form is not it), but I do think that the answer lies more in nationalizing a core curriculum and and proficiency standards for it. Every school in the nation should be covering the same basic material at a given grade level, and there should be a national standard promotion exam to demonstrate that you have mastered it; no local variations on the core. However, I'm all for allowing standardized alternative versions of the test for kids who are differently-abled or non-English speakers, if they are in situations where promotion is expected.

One thing that I would love to ban, however, is having extensive test-taking methodology lessons; that is a ridiculous waste of time. Set up some of the classroom tests to physically look like the standardized tests, and the kids will get that part on their own.

I do agree there were/are poor schools and teachers but NCLB did nothing to actually fix or address those issues and caused more issues rather than fixed anything.

The football reference is somewhat accurate in that the expectation of NCLB is that everyone regardless of their ability, circumstances and other factors is expected to be in the same place at the same time. That just isn't valid or realistic at all. Kids develop differently. A teacher isn't a bad teacher if he/she has a class that is "below" a certain standard especially if you take into account all the factors that figure into their ability to learn.. the kids with parents fighting all night, the kids who don't get decent rest, the kids who have no food at home, the kids who have parents that say school is unimportant (and yes there are plenty of those), the kid who struggles in a given subject, the kid with the learning disability (those kids scores are included in my state in all the other scores) and so on. NCLB didn't set forth any standards of set curriculum at a given time for a given grade nationwide..it put other useless red tape in the way of teachers actually teaching.

Another good one is The Blueberry Story:

If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”

I stood before an auditorium filled with outraged teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute. My speech had entirely consumed their precious 90 minutes of inservice. Their initial icy glares had turned to restless agitation. You could cut the hostility with a knife.

I represented a group of business people dedicated to improving public schools. I was an executive at an ice cream company that had become famous in the middle1980s when People magazine chose our blueberry as the “Best Ice Cream in America.”

I was convinced of two things. First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society.” Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure, and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

In retrospect, the speech was perfectly balanced — equal parts ignorance and arrogance.

As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant. She was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”

I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.”

“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”

“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.

“Premium ingredients?” she inquired.

“Super-premium! Nothing but triple A.” I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap…. I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.

“I send them back.”

She jumped to her feet. “That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s school!”

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians, and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!”

And so began my long transformation.

Since then, I have visited hundreds of schools. I have learned that a school is not a business. Schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream, and they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups that would send the best CEO screaming into the night.

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But educators cannot do this alone; these changes can occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs and health of the communities they serve, and therefore, to improve public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.

Copyright 2011 Jamie Robert Vollmer

 

[NotUrsula]

I don't think that we disagree at all. I don't think that test scores alone are ever a way to properly monitor teacher performance; I'm not fool enough to think that teaching could ever be that black and white.

I do think that standardized testing has its place in education to some degree, but as you said, NCLB in practice doesn't do what it was intended to do -- at all. The goal is still sound, but the execution is simply not functional.

My personal preference is that, except for core competency exams for promotion from one school level to another (as in elementary, middle, secondary), standardized testing should happen at the beginning of the school year rather than the end: doing it that way helps the teacher to see what his/her students' weaknesses are and plan what his/her priorities should be. (Full disclosure: my kids attend private schools, and this is the way that it is done there. It was also the way that it was done when I was in public school back in the 1970's.) I'm also firmly in favor of dividing class sections by demonstrated ability level; yeah, there might be a bit of a stigma if it is handled badly, but if it is really about learning, then kids should be taught in a way that lets teachers give kids the kind of instruction that those particular kids need in order to learn, and mixing ability levels willy-nilly across the board just can never do that.

I also don't happen to think that the overall basic goal-line should be college prep for everyone; that is an unrealistic goal. I think that the overall goal should be functional adulthood: schools should be concentrating their core focus on what the majority of US employers think is rock-bottom essential, which in most cases is reading competency at the high-school level, technical writing skill, computational math and a basic understanding of how to operate a computer to do common office tasks. Some of the things that I think should be required core for personal responsibility reasons are not now touched upon at all in many schools, especially with regard to personal finance issues and American Government.

 

[princessmom29]

While I think the football analogy is amusing, it isn't really all that apt. Teams sports mean that someone MUST lose, after all. Besides, it has already been done with athletics: President's Physical Fitness Test, anyone? When I was in grade school near a military base, the obsession with that thing was unreal. They made us do pullups and run 2 miles every single day (on a blacktopped parking lot) so that the school's score on it would be good. This was in coastal Mississippi, and I don't sweat. I used to collapse from the heat at least twice every week, but did they give me a pass? Nope.

I agree that NCLB as it stands is a disaster on wheels, but I feel that the sentiment behind it was valid. There ARE some really crappy schools in this country that are content to simply warehouse kids and not really try to teach them at all, and that is unacceptable in a country that purports to be all about opportunity. I don't claim to be an expert, and I don't have a magical solution (though obviously, NCLB in it's present form is not it), but I do think that the answer lies more in nationalizing a core curriculum and and proficiency standards for it. Every school in the nation should be covering the same basic material at a given grade level, and there should be a national standard promotion exam to demonstrate that you have mastered it; no local variations on the core. However, I'm all for allowing standardized alternative versions of the test for kids who are differently-abled or non-English speakers, if they are in situations where promotion is expected.

One thing that I would love to ban, however, is having extensive test-taking methodology lessons; that is a ridiculous waste of time. Set up some of the classroom tests to physically look like the standardized tests, and the kids will get that part on their own.

PS: A motivated kid can overcome any school instructional shortcoming with parental support, and sometimes even without it. I went to public school in what is literally one of the 5 poorest counties in the nation, with a dropout rate of over 50% (my HS class started out with over 450 students; only 112 graduated.) I spent a lot of time in libraries and tried out for every state university academic opportunity that existed, and I did just fine in the end.

I see the football analogy as perfectly apt becuasein life there are winners and losers as well. Kids need to be taught that equal opportunity and equality of outcome are not the same thing. NCLB in its present form insists on equality of outcome. It is not fair to the kid who cares adn wants to lear that all of the resources are being channeled at the kid who could care less just to get him to meet some arbitrary "proficiency standard". The idea that everyone should be perfroming to the exact same academic standard is flawed at the root. NCLB assumes every child is college bound. Many should not be. They need to be learning a trade, and NCLB makes no allowance at all for that. Eveyone is required to satiisfy the same college geared standards.

 

[simba20]

but if we test them dont we know they are learning?

There's more to assessment than a paper and pencil test. Performance based and project based assessments just to name a few. My husband teaches middle grades science. At the end of each 9 weeks, his assessemtn is a list of about 10-15 short projects that the kids can do to show their understanding. His requirement is that they pick 5. He keeps the projects short and sweet (no large posters or lots of materials needed) but the project relates to a real life senario or product that the students would use in the real world.

The benefit is that he enjoys grading them and students get to input their creativity.

He does do a weekly quiz on whatever they are learning, but uses it as an assessment for himself to know what is not being understood and what needs to be recovered or what the students may already know.

 

[HelenePA]

There's more to assessment than a paper and pencil test. Performance based and project based assessments just to name a few. My husband teaches middle grades science. At the end of each 9 weeks, his assessemtn is a list of about 10-15 short projects that the kids can do to show their understanding. His requirement is that they pick 5. He keeps the projects short and sweet (no large posters or lots of materials needed) but the project relates to a real life senario or product that the students would use in the real world.

The benefit is that he enjoys grading them and students get to input their creativity.

He does do a weekly quiz on whatever they are learning, but uses it as an assessment for himself to know what is not being understood and what needs to be recovered or what the students may already know.

we are talking about 1st graders and spelling, Math (addition and sub of 2 numbers) not middle school... unless these first graders are going to be writing papers using their spelling words in each one is there really any other way to know they know how to spell "pass" another was "cat" these are some of my 1st graders words last week

ETA I didn't see it before but your dh does "test" these tests that my first grader gets are more like small quizzes... they are ONE side of a sheet. I'm not sure about the Op's tests. Now for reading after 9 weeks they will have one major major test... which is a small book prob 25 pages long and will take most of them less than 30 min to finish...

 

[princessmom29]

There's more to assessment than a paper and pencil test. Performance based and project based assessments just to name a few. My husband teaches middle grades science. At the end of each 9 weeks, his assessemtn is a list of about 10-15 short projects that the kids can do to show their understanding. His requirement is that they pick 5. He keeps the projects short and sweet (no large posters or lots of materials needed) but the project relates to a real life senario or product that the students would use in the real world.

The benefit is that he enjoys grading them and students get to input their creativity.

He does do a weekly quiz on whatever they are learning, but uses it as an assessment for himself to know what is not being understood and what needs to be recovered or what the students may already know.

but he doesn't know wether they go all of the concepts or just the 5 they picked. I don't get how that is really a full assessment of wether that adequately grasp a quarter's worth of material. I do things like this as well, but they are only PART of the assessment process. Some testing is simply necessary to evaluate the student's mastery of the material.

 

[NotUrsula]

I see the football analogy as perfectly apt becuase in life there are winners and losers as well. Kids need to be taught that equal opportunity and equality of outcome are not the same thing.

Oh, absolutely, but in life, unlike in football, there are degrees of winning and losing, and in most life situations that do not involve direct one-on-one competition for a job or a life partner, no one HAS to lose in order for someone else to win. It doesn't need to be either/or. Schools and teachers are not being forced to fight to the death here, which is what a "football championship" analogy implies. I think that a better sport analogy might be comparing it to a marathon: sure, a marathon has one person with the best time, but everyone who manages to cross the finish line has acheived the goal. What NCLB does is to say that it's irrelevant if you don't have legs because you still have to RUN across that finish line. Most thinking people would say that even if you roll across it in a wheelchair or drag yourself on your belly, you still pushed yourself to get through those 26 miles, and even if you only finished 5 miles, you still did something good for your health. Lesser goals are still goals, and achieving them has value.

The idea behind NCLB was to try to give every kid in the country the opportunity to live up to his own intellectual potential by forcing schools to look critically at outcomes. Obviously, in practice it has completely failed to do that because of the overly simplistic way that it is implemented, but there is a tiny kernel of sense there: I don't at all expect equality of outcomes, but there *is* value in setting goals and trying to reach them.

I think it is ridiculous in an education context to try to impose a one-size fits all methodology, and to penalize teachers for failing to reach the set goals for student perfomance, but I don't think it's all that far out there to penalize them for failing to try. (And believe me, I've seen administrators and teachers that have completely given up on trying. It doesn't make them bad people, but IMO, it does mean that those in that position need to look at finding another line of work.)