On Jul 21, 2007, at 9:43 AM, Joan Matuga wrote: > Renee, I agree with you that the test scores are given an overblown > importance in the media and elsewhere. > > I responded to Kristin's message about the test. The test CA > students take (STAR) is not a norm-referenced test. It is the % the > children got correct. So, theoretically, in an all-perfect world, > every child could get 100%. (A few grades take the CAT 6 test in > addition to the STAR test.) I was only talking about the STAR test.
This is not a perfect world, children are not all the same, and anyone who expects 100% proficiency has been listening to Lake Woebegon a bit too much. I disagree that theoretically every child could get 100%. Even in a perfect world. > > However, there is a problem with reading in our country. The evidence > shows up outside the tests in real life situations. It seems that I read somewhere that the overall literacy in the United States today is much higher than it was.... say..... a couple of decades ago. And more. I don't have numbers to back this up, but it seems to be swimming around there in the back of my mind. Does anyone else know about this? > > > I'm not blaming anyone -- certainly not teachers. I think, however, > we have to admit there is a problem. We are not meeting the needs of > too many children. I agree that we are not meeting the needs of many children, but I don't think we will find out what they need by looking at test data, because the tests are flawed. They may be based on the standards, but when 2nd graders have to read a two-page excerpt of something rather obscure and answer tedious questions about it, or interpret poetry, or answer math questions that are read aloud to them, the resulting test scores are just not valid. My personal favorites are the "writing" questions that have nothing to do with writing and everything to do with proofreading, and then are confusing. > > I'm looking to my own teaching -- not casting stones at anyone else. > What can I do to help the students in my class who are not proficient > readers? When I looked at the test results for my class, I pretty > much agreed with the results. I knew which students were the best > readers in my class and they did the best. I knew which students were > struggling, and the STAR tests confirmed my data. If you knew which were the best readers in your class and they had the best scores, what is the point of the test? Seems like a waste of time to me. We don't need no stinkin' standardised tests that use up a lot of classroom time and resource money to tell us what we know just by being there. > > I don't think that blindly following the HM teachers manual is the > answer In fact, I don't think there in any one correct answer. I absolutely agree. > > However, I don't want to stick my head in the dirt and ignore the fact > that there is a problem. I want to help all my students become > successful readers. I also don't want to pat myself on the back as > say, "Wow, my kids did so much better than most students in the state > and district." and just forget about those 6 students who didn't do as > well as the other 14. > I don't think it's useful to compare kids with kids from other districts, other states, other countries, other classrooms, or even the same classroom. Plus, there is the problem that because the tests don't have *lots and lots* of questions, missing one item can plunk a child several percentage points down the ladder. In all honesty, I don't have a *huge* problem with standardized tests as one kind of measure. But increasingly they are being used to make high stakes decisions for children because the resulting numbers and being boxed into narrow ranges that label children as proficient or not proficient and I think that's wrong, especially when every teacher I have ever talked to agrees that the standards (I'm talking about California) are too tedious, too nit-picky, and being pushed down to lower grades in some kind of strange idea that more and faster delivery of information will somehow result in more learning. Quite the opposite seems to be true, since there is a decided quantity of skimming across curriculum instead of really studying the content and engaging in the process. Who decided that it's important for kindergartners to read? For second graders to know their multiplication tables? For third graders to be able to write a five-paragraph essay? For fifth graders to know about the Periodic Table of the Elements? These are inappropriate, arbitrary standards that have nothing to do with true learning. I agree that many students have trouble reading. But many of them simply need more time and do not happen to conform to time lines and grade levels that are not only arbitrary, but punitive. I say let's let kids be kids and learn on their own time and stop worrying if they don't' know how to use an apostrophe when they are seven years old. Renee Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. ~ Albert Einstein _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
