what are we doing to our children?

Parents should and must do something about this. Teachers are graded based on their test scores. Administrators in my district are given raises (or lack of raises) based on test scores. There is talk of putting teachers on a similar plan. If teachers discuss the negative affects of such concentration on test scores, they are told that they are hiding something: poor teaching practices that won’t hold up.

A parental uprising through legislation will put a stop to all this nonsense. Call your legislator and make a complaint. If he/she gets enough complaints (hint hint) they will take action.

There is such an emphasis these days on holding teachers and schools accountable that they cannot speak out on this issue. They are mandated to simply push for better test scores.

I think that there is a happy median in this whole issue.

The NEA is the second largest union in the country. It is not powerless at all. It is silent on the matter of standardized testing but if it were to speak out against it, Washington would listen.

There is no organized group of parents the size of which approaches the size of the NEA.

It’s not healthy for any child, gifted or not. You might find interesting a book entitled Whatever Happened To Recess and Why Is My Child Struggling in Kindergarten?

We can only hope for better days in our schools as these are pretty grim.

Somewhere along the way it stopped being about learning and started to be about performing.

I thankfully have my child with a teacher that seems to understand this. I think I will have to raise heaven and earth to make sure he gets such a teacher every year.

Teachers are accused of hiding behind their union, too. If parents want it, teachers can support it. The movement must begin with parents, I believe, and then teachers will support them.

The PTA is every bit as powerful as the NEA—and has a voice in both the family room and the class room. They may be the organization to lead us fromt the wilderness. Any PTAer’s out there to comment on this issue?

I believe we as parents must use the political system in our own states to voice an opinion about standardized testing.

Memberships are available everywhere.

PTA is huge and so it would stand to reason that they have the name and voice and organizational structure to have an impact. This will be a national issue and so even a small representation in a state would make a huge difference. I wonder what the other side of this debate would resemble…surely there must be an opposing voice.

Here in Texas we start our high stakes testing this year. 3rd graders have to pass a standarized reading test to be promoted to 4th grade. 18% of 3rd graders failed the “pre-test.” The teachers only teach this test starting from Kindergarten - nothing but the test, how to take it, to what’s on it. These 3rd graders will have to pass it again at 5th and 8th and then 11th for graduation.

This “demand” for such a test came about bec kids were graduating who couldn’t read or write. Employers complained. The public demanded their schools improve. The people wanted an end to social promotion. No more just pushing kids through bec it was easy. Now there’s accountability. Schools know which students, which classrooms, which teachers, which concepts, which subjects, which schools, which districts, which race, which ethnicity, which grade is having trouble. It’s created a very stressful environment.

If you do a search on the internet for high-stakes testing you will see that most educational groups oppose it. They see it as increasing drop-out rates, causing stress, teaching the test, discriminatory, stifling teacchers and encouraging parents to seek private school educations, not bec their kids can’t pass but bec they would like them to learn something besides the test.

I hate the test but I find the statistics it provides fascinating.

What interests you about the stats?

I beg your pardon, the P.T.A. is a large, respectable national organization.

When teachers speak out against a movement such at this, we appear to be complainers to who don’t want to tow the line. When YOUR job is threatened by test scores, when your data is being published in the local newspaper, people quickly jump to a conclusion when YOU speak out against this practice (that is of excessive testing and pushing tough and aggressive standards into lower and lower grades.).

NEA and its affiliates have expressed concerns for years. The problems is that they are looked upon with suspicion by many. They are expected to whine about this movement and not taken seriously.

The people who will be taken seriously are parents who can attest to the effects this movement is having upon their children. That is the only thing they will listen to. If a parent group like P.T.A. would take a very public stand, then NEA would probably join.

Fully 20% of our students will fall below the average range on a normal curve. This means that 20% of our students in schools don’t have good average ability. They are educable, very much so, however this era of standards that are rigorous (too rigorous) is death to these students. ‘

Our schools need to regroup and take into account the children who cannot perform at grade level standards, they need to slow the pace down for these children and teach them at a rate at which they can learn.

The current trend toward everybody being at grade level, toward ever more challenging standards and exit exams will produce a whole new generation of high school drop-outs with the attendant problems. More kids will hit the streets at a younger age than we now see.

However, when we try to teach kids the way they learn, we have some classes that are more accelerated than others. Then people begin to look at the racial and ethnic composition of these higher and lower classes and they start to cry “discrimination.” There you have the reason why we don’t have classes that move at faster and slower paces, but one-size fits all.

I read a abstract yesterday, from England. Low S.E.S. children typically have significantly less language than middle and high S.E.S. children. An intervention to stimulate language development in preschool children from low S.E.S. families was attempted. The children were stimulated with language instruction and rich models. It had zero positive effect in the study.

If there was any validity to this, what do we do? Yes, we can teach low S.E.S. children with minimal vocabularies decoding, but it is the comprehension where they will suffer.

I agree with all you wrote. I would be happy to join in and support parents on this issue, but—like you—I do believe they must by the initiators.

Interesting post, Anitya. I work in a voluntary alternative high school (as opposed to day treatment or long-term suspension) and half our populations are kids with low SES kids and 75-85 IQ’s. I do combo Title I reading and sped.

Most of the low SES readers have poor vocabulary and information. It isn’t usual to see scores in the 2-3 range on a WISC or WAIS. Most of these kids can word-call at a level way above their comprehension. A few have word ID problems and LD symptoms (but don’t really make discrepancy qualification). What is really sad is that most of these teens have just given up on themselves as learners. They have no models at home—really they have no one at home.

We are just trying to get them through the curriculum to graduate. That in itself is a major accomplishment.

I was a PTAer in my day. It relied upon dues as its income source. It’s hardly as poweful as the NEA which draws upon salaries as an income source. My state, for example, has ‘fair share’ districts which means even those teachers who refuse to join the union must yet pay dues as if they are members.

I can hardly debate this point. Any comparison of PTA and NEA in terms of membership, funds or effective lobbying is silly.

I guess I wasn’t looking at the question of who is most powerful, but who must have the leadership voice on this question. PTA has wonderful national lobbiest capability and some very powerful state associations—enough to get the job *started* and bring others in with them.

When I was president of a state LD association, we made a huge impact with only a 1,000 or so state-wide members. We were bull-dogs on the issues and collaborated with other organizations, such as PTA, to make our voice louder during IDEA ‘97 reauthorization. That is the kind of leadership that we need from PTA on this issue, in my opinion.

I totally concur with Anitya’s post on this thread. NEA will collaborate but cannot take the lead—they’ll be fired upon from all corners. This must be parent-lead issue to have an impact on legislators.

I think it’s interesting to compare the stats from one school to the next, one neighborhood to the next, one 3rd grade teacher to the next. I think the stats really point out what a challenge poverty is. I think it highlights the really good schools who despite poverty can really achieve. I think those schools get credit now. Recently the issue as come up with a friend of mine who is house hunting. She found this house where the neighborhood school is surrounded by very nice houses. But if you look at the TAAS scores they are not that great. Mmm? What’s up with that? Do some more research and you find that the homeowners transfer their kids to another school and this school is full of apartment kids. The TAAS test shows apartment kids - transient, poor kids - don’t do well in school. My friend didn’t buy there.

Having a common state wide test that everyone has to take just makes a standard for which to compare. You can look at things relative to others.

Wish more people would dig into things in this fasion. There is much to be learned from stats. Many people are into qualitative data (soft data) because stats are confusing to them. Yes, there’s meaning in qualitative, but sometimes hard data is the only way to go. Great post!

In my state(Mass.) this is a political decision implemented by the govenor and state legislature. Education policy is usually implemented on a state level. Where does your governor and state legislator stand on testing?

Most politicians stand with whomever is going to be their next vote. (Sorry, my bias.)

And so he goes federal and so does his education policy. I believe he has already signed an Education Package that requires all states to implement similar mandatory high stakes testing that Texas now does. There is some time frame the states have to start doing it.

That is the shame ….If the schools do poorly people are moving from that town or not buying. The schools have to perform to keep the contractors in business. We hear all the time..do not let the scores go low…we will lose people and home prices will fall.

Look what is being judged by standardized tests?

I don’t think it is a shame that home values are tied to school performance. It’s another motivating factor to keep the schools good. State testing gives homeowners, realtors, prospective homebuyers a snapshot of how good a school is. (We’re not dealing with contractors in our area as it as been built out for 30+ years.)

The homes in our neighborhood are selling for 20,000-25,000 more than they should bec the neighborhood schools are rated exemplary based on the standardized tests. We’re not complaining. And as voters we are happy to vote through any school bond package that goes by to make sure the schools stay good and our property values stay high.

In my well funded district the TAAS scores are very high. We also have higher levels of sped kids than most districts.

Are the sped kid’s scores factored in? I am not sure. I have always wondered if they didn’t elevate their scores by overclassifying.

I think either way the big picture is that if you have a bunch of stressed out kids their scores will be affected. We need to look at the best way to help kids. If a situation such as the one described in the first post of this thread exists it can’t result in positive test scores.

We are dealing, after all, with children not little number 2 pencil holding machines.