By MIKE SMITH
AP Political Writer
September 2 2009, 4:50 PM CDT
INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Department of Education wants to change the way school
accountability is evaluated, with more emphasis on how students improve over the
years instead of focusing mostly on how schools perform on a yearly basis.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-schoolaccountabil,0,7194296.story
Should we change the way we evaluate students? Should we look at schools instead of students?
Monday, September 7, 2009
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I agree with placing more accountability on how 'individual' students progress through the program of studies.
ReplyDeleteI think it should be the individual students. We have all had students that we have worked double hard with and they either won't or learn as much as we would like. I think we need teacher and administrator accountability but too often is no more than a witch hunt. Look at what is going on in IPS now.
ReplyDeleteI agree with evaluating progress of each student. In fact, even though it's not a school policy, I evaluate my own students at the beginning of the term and at the end, and provide my principal with the results. This is way more helpful to both of us than ISTEP scores. I can't bring every student up to grade level, but very rarely do I have a student that I can't bring up at least one grade level.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't think that means we can't evaluate schools as a whole. I just think instead of evaluating how many students passed ISTEP or how many students are taking AP or IB courses, the "good" schools would be those in which students show the most progress from year to year.
I would like a few more details when the whole plan is completed. I do agree wholeheartedly with the idea that a third-grader should not be allowed to leave that grade until he/she is able to read. It is beyond frustrating to have a high-school student reading at the third-grade level. How did they ever get this far, you wonder? How were they ever able to comprehend grade-level material well enough to move on to the next grade?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you do when a child in the third grade reaches 16 years of age and and still is not ready for fourth grade..?????
ReplyDeleteObviously unless the child has an IQ of under 50, his third grade teacher(s) would need to be fired. But that's unlikely to happen. The problem isn't that some kids can't learn 3rd grade. The problem is that some kids can't learn 3rd grade in one year.
ReplyDeleteHow do you hold a single teacher responsible for the poor third grader who has already attended at least 6 schools? Whose homelife is chaotic, who comes to school hungry or sick or worried that the heat won't be on when they get home?
ReplyDeleteLots of our kids suffer from what I term OTSD Ongoing Traumatic Shock Disorder, and it makes learning very difficult. They need the ordered calm enviroment of Mr. Rogers.
Instead they get scrimmage tests, and paniced teachers who might not make the next benchmark test. A curriculum that is taught at the speed of light, with no respect for what the learned actually needs; wait time, five to five thousand experiences, maturity, understanding.
IPS administrators know these things, they have seen the data, read the research, (think Marzano, unpacking the standards) but they are so busy trying to make the big dog happy they ignore their duty to the students.
Oh, yes ..it is always the teacher's fault. Fire the teacher and all will be fine. Is this Jane Kendrick again?
ReplyDeleteIts called medication and I have OTSD and PTSS due to the stress of IPS and life. I am now on six different types of medications to control my anger and feeling of disgust at the fools at the top. So, I have made the decision to join the bobble-headed fools and have enrolled in courses to become an administrator (money, money). Then I can allow my anger and personal feelings to flow down the hallways of the school creating problems for the entire school that I rule. The child with the IQ of 50 needs to head over to the Over and Under Program, or GAP Program.
ReplyDeleteOver and Under...what a zoo and what a huge waste of money....stay away from even the same hallway that has an Over and Under Class.
ReplyDeleteI've met several times with Jane Kendrick and I really don't get that vibe from her. Her thinking is clear and well thought out. I recall her talking about Springboard and she said that she wasn't sure if it was good or bad but we needed to stick with it long enough to find out one way or the other and stop jumping to new programs every year. She always struck me as sensible.
ReplyDeleteThe Over/Under classes were like so many of the "great" ideas of this administration. Nothing but smmoke and mirrors.
ReplyDeleteOops! I meant "smoke." :)
ReplyDeleteWhen I said the teacher(s) needed to be fired, I was responding to the suggestion that a child could hypothetically repeat the 3rd grade seven times under this policy. Obviously, in this absurd hypothetical, the education was faulty, not the policy. Switching schools can account for some delay, but certainly not more than a year's worth unless he is being given absolutely no individual attention whatsoever in any of the schools.
ReplyDeleteI can recall a second grade from years ago, he needed to be tested, and it was pretty obvious, but he had been at eight schools in the first grade. My school was the third school he'd been at in second grade and we were only in November. His teacher filled out all the forms and by the time that was finished he had moved yet again. She kept after it and sent all the paper work on to the new school and did the follow up to make sure he was tested. By the time his name came up, he had moved again, but through her effort he got moved to the top of the list and was tested. He turned out to be classified as an MO student. Had it not been for the effort of this teacher he would have never been tested since he never spent more then a month at any school. Again an old story but I also remember a sixth grade teacher having a young girl tested who turned out to be yet another MO kid, she was just so nice, helpful and quiet no one noticed she was years behind.
ReplyDelete"Bennett said many schools now focus mostly on getting "bubble" students who are close to passing the ISTEP test to pass it, instead of spending more time and resources on those who score very low. An accountability system that places more emphasis on students with low test scores would help improve schools, he said."
ReplyDeleteAh if it only worked that way, concern for individual students first, instead of this push that puts the teacher, school, district, or superintendent first. Isn't that one of the infamous cultural imperatives?