I watched a show on PBS last night called “Closing the Gap” on a charter school in New Haven, CT which has had great success with underperforming minority children. One thing I thought was really interesting is that they modeled the school on a special education school in Calgary Canada. They had an extended day and a focus on the basics including two hours a day on reading. Kids were required to read 20 minutes each night.
Another interesting thing was how much testing they did. The kids were required to take the state standardized testing but the school tested the kids every six weeks and used that information to adjust what they were doing, if necessary.
One of the graphs they showed indicated that overall kids public school did not change much on state tests from fifth to seventh (school went from 5-8). But the kids in this school (who were indistinguishable from public minority kids in fourth grade scores) went from like 22% to almost 70%. They were indistinguishable from the white surburban kids in reading and math and surpassed them in writing.
Beth
Re: PBS special "Closing the Gap"
[quote=”Beth in FL”]
Another interesting thing was how much testing they did. The kids were required to take the state standardized testing but the school tested the kids every six weeks and used that information to adjust what they were doing, if necessary.
Is there any information regarding what influence testing had on the reading improvement that was reported? Were commercial tests used, or were tests created by teachers?
Re: PBS special "Closing the Gap"
>Is there any information regarding what influence testing had on the reading improvement that was reported? Were commercial tests used, or were tests created by teachers?[/quote]
Arthur, I’m sure they are talking about commercial standardized tests. I worry about these too. Esp. the kinds given to groups of students (like the Iowa or Milwaukee tests). I think kids are overtested.
These are not the diagnostic tests that Janis mentioned in another post.
I also think the use of them has caused lying and cheating by school
administrators (ie in Texas) to cook the books.
Not saying this school that was portrayed did. Sounds like spent a real lot of time on actual instruction.
You might be interested in the site: www.fairtest.org
—des
Amazing what you can do when you actually focus on teaching, isn’t it?