| Topic: |
Sociology > Education |
| User: |
"Dom" |
| Date: |
05 Sep 2007 09:13:12 AM |
| Object: |
Blame Teachers, Blame Parents |
The following two letters refer to the front-page news story at:
courant.com/news/education/hc-bloomdrop0901.artsep01,0,7764592.story
dealing with the "startling decline in test results by Bloomfield High
School sophomores on an annual statewide [...] Connecticut Academic
Performance Test."
Dianna Wilson's letter blames teachers, and Richard Banbury's blames
parents. I wonder if the following may be some additional reasons for
the decline in the mathematics scores:
1. The batteries ran out on many graphing calculators.
2. For many of the problems, many students were unsure of which "tool"
to use from their "toolbox": numerical, graphical, algebraic, work
backward from the answers, or guess-and-check.
3. Many students selected two or more of the multiple choices, based
on the different answers obtained by using the various "tools" in (2).
4. The mathematics problems involved mostly Algebra I, percents, and
elementary geometry. Sophomores in geometry, algebra II, or
precalculus had forgotten this material. The three or four weeks of
drills, which completely disrupted their courses, preceeding this test
were not sufficient to regain "mastery."
====================================
courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-lets0905.artsep05,0,5928449.story
Link Learning To Real Life
It's perplexing to me that educators in Bloomfield are "soul-
searching" over dismal high-school test results [Page 1, Sept. 1,
"'Soul-Searching' Over test Results"]. Why not ask the students why
they find the subject matter so hard to master?
Could a big problem be that public high school classes are still being
taught in a vacuum with no connection between subject matter and real-
life experiences? Is it a matter of schools shoving what looks like
boring, pointless information into students' brains, and then hoping
they pass the test?
If asked, I bet most students would admit to wondering why they need
to master a subject (algebra, for instance); and how this subject can
be helpful to them or their future employers.
How hard can it be to add a class or two on subject-matter relevancy
to an overall course curriculum? Most private schools do a great job
in this area and have the test results to prove it. Why can't public
schools?
Dianna Wilson, Glastonbury
The writer is working toward her teaching certificate in high school-
level business education at Central Connecticut State University.
Success Achieved With Parents' Help
Isn't too much of the test-score reporting based on an unstated
assumption that results are a function of the quality of the schools,
to the exclusion of other variables? Or that there is a direct
correlation between good schools and good scores?
Take two hypothetical families. In the first, both parents are
professionals with graduate degrees who have The New York Times (and
The Courant) delivered to the home and who teach their children to
read. In the second, the parents didn't finish high school, cannot
afford The Courant and have trouble reading themselves, much less
teaching their kids.
Is the first family more likely to live in Avon or Hartford, Madison
or New Haven, Ridgefield or Bridgeport? This is not a genetics
analysis, and the dynamic would apply if identical twins were
separated at birth and adopted by Madison and Bridgeport families.
The urban schools, from my experience, do not suffer from a lack of
good educators. To imply that the administrators and teachers in the
urban schools are less competent or dedicated than those in suburban
and rural schools would be an exercise in false logic. It's that the
Madison kids are continually being educated outside the school
building as well as inside. This is not so in Bridgeport.
It's unfair to judge the schools for these disparities unless they
have the children 24 hours a day, which obviously can't happen.
Richard Banbury, Marlborough
The writer interviews high school seniors from Hartford for the Yale
University admissions office as an alumni volunteer.
.
|
|
| User: "Larry Hewitt" |
|
| Title: Re: Blame Teachers, Blame Parents |
05 Sep 2007 03:40:19 PM |
|
|
"Dom" <DRosa@teikyopost.edu> wrote in message
news:1189001592.808518.49160@o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
The following two letters refer to the front-page news story at:
courant.com/news/education/hc-bloomdrop0901.artsep01,0,7764592.story
dealing with the "startling decline in test results by Bloomfield High
School sophomores on an annual statewide [...] Connecticut Academic
Performance Test."
Dianna Wilson's letter blames teachers, and Richard Banbury's blames
parents. I wonder if the following may be some additional reasons for
the decline in the mathematics scores:
1. The batteries ran out on many graphing calculators.
2. For many of the problems, many students were unsure of which "tool"
to use from their "toolbox": numerical, graphical, algebraic, work
backward from the answers, or guess-and-check.
3. Many students selected two or more of the multiple choices, based
on the different answers obtained by using the various "tools" in (2).
4. The mathematics problems involved mostly Algebra I, percents, and
elementary geometry. Sophomores in geometry, algebra II, or
precalculus had forgotten this material. The three or four weeks of
drills, which completely disrupted their courses, preceeding this test
were not sufficient to regain "mastery."
====================================
courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-lets0905.artsep05,0,5928449.story
Link Learning To Real Life
It's perplexing to me that educators in Bloomfield are "soul-
searching" over dismal high-school test results [Page 1, Sept. 1,
"'Soul-Searching' Over test Results"]. Why not ask the students why
they find the subject matter so hard to master?
Could a big problem be that public high school classes are still being
taught in a vacuum with no connection between subject matter and real-
life experiences? Is it a matter of schools shoving what looks like
boring, pointless information into students' brains, and then hoping
they pass the test?
If asked, I bet most students would admit to wondering why they need
to master a subject (algebra, for instance); and how this subject can
be helpful to them or their future employers.
How hard can it be to add a class or two on subject-matter relevancy
to an overall course curriculum? Most private schools do a great job
in this area and have the test results to prove it. Why can't public
schools?
Dianna Wilson, Glastonbury
The writer is working toward her teaching certificate in high school-
level business education at Central Connecticut State University.
Success Achieved With Parents' Help
Isn't too much of the test-score reporting based on an unstated
assumption that results are a function of the quality of the schools,
to the exclusion of other variables? Or that there is a direct
correlation between good schools and good scores?
Take two hypothetical families. In the first, both parents are
professionals with graduate degrees who have The New York Times (and
The Courant) delivered to the home and who teach their children to
read. In the second, the parents didn't finish high school, cannot
afford The Courant and have trouble reading themselves, much less
teaching their kids.
Is the first family more likely to live in Avon or Hartford, Madison
or New Haven, Ridgefield or Bridgeport? This is not a genetics
analysis, and the dynamic would apply if identical twins were
separated at birth and adopted by Madison and Bridgeport families.
The urban schools, from my experience, do not suffer from a lack of
good educators. To imply that the administrators and teachers in the
urban schools are less competent or dedicated than those in suburban
and rural schools would be an exercise in false logic. It's that the
Madison kids are continually being educated outside the school
building as well as inside. This is not so in Bridgeport.
It's unfair to judge the schools for these disparities unless they
have the children 24 hours a day, which obviously can't happen.
Richard Banbury, Marlborough
The writer interviews high school seniors from Hartford for the Yale
University admissions office as an alumni volunteer.
Or could it be that high stakes standardized testing is worthless for
assessing ability?
"In the last few years, England has created the most tested school
population in the world from age 5 to age 18. School improvement lies in
scoring even higher in the national tests, irrespective of whether these
tests bear any relation to the quality of learning, and schools which see
the poverty of the testing regime suffer the penalty of going down the very
public league tables. The results of the 'high stakes testing' are that
teachers increasingly teach to the test, young people are disillusioned and
disengaged, higher education complains that those matriculating (despite
higher scores) are ill prepared for university studies, and intelligent and
creative teachers incleasingly feel dissatisfied with their professional
work. I believe it is no coincidence that, according to the recent UNICEF
Report, children in England are at the bottom of the league of rich
countries in terms of happiness and feelings of well-being, or that England
now criminalises 230,000 children between 11 and 17 each year (the highest
in absolute and relative terms in the whole of Europe), or that nearly 10%
of 16-18 year olds belong to the Not in Education, Training and Employment
group, despite the massive investment in that group over the last ten years.
And why should one expect anything else as most of their day light hours
consists of preparing for tests, totally disconnected from their interests
and concerns, present or future?"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070904/cm_huffpost/063011;_ylt=ApO9uunOjLQZ_AdNIIz10jAd6sgF
Sounds like the US eduation system --- disillusionment, anger, detachment,
high drop out rate, falling skills,
Larry
.
|
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| User: "Dom" |
|
| Title: Re: Blame Teachers, Blame Parents |
06 Sep 2007 09:05:43 AM |
|
|
On Sep 5, 4:40 pm, "Larry Hewitt" <larryh...@comporium.net> wrote:
[snip]
Or could it be that high stakes standardized testing is worthless for
assessing ability?
"In the last few years, England has created the most tested school
population in the world from age 5 to age 18. School improvement lies in
scoring even higher in the national tests, irrespective of whether these
tests bear any relation to the quality of learning, and schools which see
the poverty of the testing regime suffer the penalty of going down the very
public league tables. The results of the 'high stakes testing' are that
teachers increasingly teach to the test, young people are disillusioned and
disengaged, higher education complains that those matriculating (despite
higher scores) are ill prepared for university studies, and intelligent and
creative teachers incleasingly feel dissatisfied with their professional
work. I believe it is no coincidence that, according to the recent UNICEF
Report, children in England are at the bottom of the league of rich
countries in terms of happiness and feelings of well-being, or that England
now criminalises 230,000 children between 11 and 17 each year (the highest
in absolute and relative terms in the whole of Europe), or that nearly 10%
of 16-18 year olds belong to the Not in Education, Training and Employment
group, despite the massive investment in that group over the last ten years.
And why should one expect anything else as most of their day light hours
consists of preparing for tests, totally disconnected from their interests
and concerns, present or future?"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070904/cm_huffpost/063011;_ylt=ApO...
Sounds like the US eduation system --- disillusionment, anger, detachment,
high drop out rate, falling skills,
The testing business is a real racket, which is now creating the
auditing racket!
.
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| User: "Bob LeChevalier" |
|
| Title: Re: Blame Teachers, Blame Parents |
05 Sep 2007 02:34:25 PM |
|
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Dom <DRosa@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
The following two letters refer to the front-page news story at:
courant.com/news/education/hc-bloomdrop0901.artsep01,0,7764592.story
dealing with the "startling decline in test results by Bloomfield High
School sophomores on an annual statewide [...] Connecticut Academic
Performance Test."
Dianna Wilson's letter blames teachers, and Richard Banbury's blames
parents.
Banbury's lettter does NOT "blame parents". It merely notes the
commonplace knowledge that kids whose parents have advanced education
tend to do better than kids whose parents are illiterate. It is not
necessarily the parents' fault that one has an advanced degree and the
other has little education. It merely is a circumstance of high
import that is outside the school's control.
lojbab
.
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| User: "Dom" |
|
| Title: Re: Blame Teachers, Blame Parents |
09 Sep 2007 07:05:33 AM |
|
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On Sep 5, 10:13 am, Dom <DR...@teikyopost.edu> wrote:
The following two letters refer to the front-page news story at:
courant.com/news/education/hc-bloomdrop0901.artsep01,0,7764592.story
dealing with the "startling decline in test results by Bloomfield High
School sophomores on an annual statewide [...] Connecticut Academic
Performance Test."
[snip]
Here is another letter that attempts to blame parents and students for
the current state of pseudo-education.
====================
courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-lets0909.artsep09,0,812048.story
September 9, 2007
Education Is Different Now
In response to the Sept. 1 article that reported the test results of
Bloomfield's 10th-graders [Page 1, "'Soul-Searching' Over Test
Results"]:
Please do not blame the school, the teachers or the principal for the
results. Look at the students and their parents. Parents who don't say
no, cannot get their children to follow their instructions and don't
encourage their children to work hard need to be held responsible for
some of the results. The triangle of education includes teachers,
students and parents.
Many students lack respect for their teachers and the work required
for their futures. Some parents have a difficult time with their
children and are unable to enforce rules and consequences. Other
parents don't encourage their children to complete assigned work and
make excuses when the students fail to do their work. A few parents
ignore calls from teachers. And some parents ride the principal to get
their children better grades.
Schools aren't the same as they used to be and neither are the
students or their parents.
Judith Nielsen, East Granby
The writer is a former biology teacher in the public school system.
.
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