Diane Wiley wrote: > First of all, Minneapolis has always broken their tests down > by race. At Seward, where my son went, our Parents group asked > for the breakdowns and received them.
"Always" is a rather inclusive word. Does this mean since 1900, 1950, or 1996? According to Department of Education MCA exams have been given since 1998, began with only grades 5 and 7, and were voluntary. It was NCLB that required schools to insure that minimum percentages of students take the tests. It is important to realize that when tests are voluntary the results may not accurately reflect school achievement. I am still working on the details for the MPS and will post them if the MPS ever call me back. > But most importantly, how are you going to "close the gap" > if you don't help individual students? I didn't say that NCLB wouldn't help individual students, I said that it targeted schools rather than students. I know that this is a difficult concept. The idea is that when schools improve, then by necessity individual students will have improved, but not necessarily all individual students (which is a problem that I pointed out in a previous post). If you understand this concept, then it helps to explain why NCLB requires that all students meet minimal requirements by a certain date, it's the only way that you can leave no child behind. > And what good are all these tests if they don't get back to the > teachers in time for them to use the tests to help the individual > kids? If you don't understand how helping schools helps students, then you probably don't see the answer to this question. In order to manage any type of complex institution you need feedback about performance. The more accurate your feedback the more effectively you can manage. From a strategic decision standpoint, teachers don't need individual test scores, but administrators need scores to know where to make changes and allocate resources. Teachers' own in-class assessments should provide them with adequate feedback about students' achievement. However, in-class assessments cannot be used for strategic decisions because (unless they are standardized) they cannot be used to compare students in different classes. > All the tests show is what we already know -- that many subgroups > of kids aren't doing well. And all the wasted test time and money > spent on it -- and it's a lot -- doesn't do anything for those > kids. Tests show us far more than just which subgroups are not achieving. They show us which changes may affect performance. They allow us to see which schools are performing well and with which groups of students. Without testing you cannot make informed decisions about educational reforms! Which begs the question of why testing hasn't been required. > You have argued for years that smaller class size won't help anyone. No! I have argued for years that smaller class sizes are not a cost effective reform and that you can achieve more for less with other types of reforms. > Yet, those of us who have "these kids" [and can afford it] > see them respond wonderfully in smaller tutoring settings we have to > pay through the nose to take them to outside of school. Without more > funding for more teachers and aides to give these kids individual > attention, NCLB is a set up. It's interesting that you would say this, because tutoring is one of the specific interventions that NCLB requires. My position is that if you know how to structure and organize large classes, they can be as effective as small classes for the vast majority of students. This does not imply that some students will not need individual tutoring or that individual tutoring is not effective. > Instead what we have is more trashing of teachers by > Pawlenty, Yecke and their ilk, and bigger and bigger class > sizes -- 44 kids in high school math classes. And the kids > who were just "having problems" in math in elementary > and middle school become total statistics. If this isn't > part of a plan todenigrate and destroy our public school system, > I don't know what it is. I criticize teachers because many are so hidebound that they obstruct educational reform. This is a self-perpetuating problem. The MPS still allows teachers to pass students who have not mastered their subject matter, when these students find themselves in large classes in which they don't have the ability to succeed they become bored and disruptive, which in turn makes it difficult to teach such classes (besides the problem of teachers having to deal with too wide a range of abilities). Once again, NCLB has nothing to do with large class sizes. You need to look to the State Legislature with questions about funding. No one here has presented any evidence that NCLB has had an impact on school funding, let alone a larger effect than the State's funding reorganization or the loss of minority students. Michael Atherton Prospect Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
