Cheating allowed and ENCOURAGED?!

[Royd]

Quote:
Royd, I share in the sense of confusion on why this is such a big issue. In theory, the teachers should teach and then periodically get "checked" on performance through a standardized test. In reality, at least for my three kids, the teachers can spend up to a week giving "practice tests" and instructing the kids on how to "take" the test (as someone mentioned earlier).

I'm not judging the teachers - heck, I see this behavior in my professional life. Our projects get audited periodically - the good Project Managers do what right and the audit is just an annoyance to get through. The average (or less) PM's scramble to "prepare for the audit".

I have several family members who are teachers, and fairly good ones at that. They too are annoyed about how what seemed a good idea was poorly implemented and administered at the local level. There are a lot of contributing factors to why this isn't working, I wouldn't be so ready to blame the NCLBA itself in a blanket fashion.

So, what exactly is a practice test, that is different from a real test?

To me, teaching to the test means giving them the questions and answers ahead of time. The onus should be upon the student, at that point, to get it right. The teacher did their job.

Sounds to me like we've got far deeper problems, in society, trying to figure out why kids can't or won't learn....Could it be, exposing their undeveloped brains to hours of SpongeBob Square Pants or video games, which flash a new frame every 1/10 of a second.

 

[dainerra]

Quote:
Royd, that is what many districts require now. They want the teachers to drill drill drill the info into the children's heads. Every good teacher (and parent!) knows that not everyone learns the same way. Unfortunately, teaching to the test doesn't leave room for that approach. Many districts are adopting a one-size fits all approach to teaching and that approach isn't chosen by experienced teachers but by politicians and administrators that might have ZERO experience in the education system.

As I said in my other post, it's a money-driven system. If X number of students don't score at least Y on the test, the district is going to lose money.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Quote:
Either samples or previous years' tests. They really focus some significant time on "how to take the test" - looking for the patterns in how the questions are asked, etc. Like any "standardized" testing approach, once you crack the approach behind the test, it vastly improves your odds - like knowing 2 of 4 are completely off-base if you have a basic understanding of the material. You just took your odds from 1 in 4 to 1 in 2 in guessing the right answer.

It is money-driven, schools are given funding to help students through individual programs (IEP) and you have to fight tooth and nail for your kid to be placed on one that means anything. Without spending it on the IEP, they are free to spend it on something else.

So we have financial pressure to achieve measurable results, HR guidelines determined by union contracts, a general apathy from a non-trivial number of parents, pressure to include more political correctness, on and on. Individual things that have merit by themselves, but there is not holistic approach to solve the problem as a whole. It can be really depressing....

 

[chickened]

Learning anything requires effective discipline of some sort, the two go together like PB&J. The public schools have no effective discipline and the undisciplined child suffers the most. Respect is the beginning of learning. Not effectively taught anymore in PS's which is one reason private and homeschoolers succeed.

 

[Royd]

It sounds like it's time to disband the NEA and teacher's unions and get back to some real teaching. Do teachers not realize that after all of the money passes through the hands of the Washington bureaucrats, a large chunk of it is siphoned off, just for salaries?

Just think of the tax dollars saved, if that money went to the state or districts, directly.......I know! What about those poor districts in Washington DC and Detroit. To that, I say, let all those who tout the virtues of giving back, put their money where their mouths are.

 

[mom'sfolly]

Here in Texas we have state set curriculum and textbooks. It hasn't helped education in Texas in any way, in fact if you pay any attention to what the state school board is doing in Texas, you will see that it does exactly the opposite. The state school board is elected, and members often have no experience in education. For local school board elections, I went to several of the debates. It was interesting to see how and what people thought would improve local schools, to see at least a couple of members violate open meeting laws by texting, and to see how people with no experience in education thought they could run schools.

School funding is directly tied to NCLB. You have too many children in your school failing, your school gets shut down. These tests do no actually measure academic performance or subject mastery. They measure the very specific criteria set out by the test. Schools must have kids pass, and improving scores to keep their schools running. The system isn't weighted for academic excellence or learning, it is weighted for test taking. It is mandatory pass in several grade levels, which means there is tremendous pressure on kids for that one day which will make or break there passing, even if they know the subject completely. School must keep their ratings up, which means often low performing students get labels, that way they don't get counted in the test score. Minority and poor students must also score within a certain percentage, if the don't...whoops, lets label them as learning disabled to get their numbers off the rating.

While the ideas behind NCLB actually make sense, the implementation hasn't made as much sense. Schools and teachers should be accountable, by NCLB is not the way to do it. Teachers with great teaching skills, and innovative interesting approaches don't necessarily prep their kids for tests as well as the plodding, rule obsessed, rigid teachers. The system actually penalizes good teachers. It doesn't allow teachers to give different assignments to kids with different ability levels, to use individualized approaches to non-conventional learners or to implement curriculum enhancements that make things more interesting for the kids.

Teachers aren't the ones who set the rules. They are the ones who have to follow them. And god forbid that a principal have a school whose test grades are going down, not up. This is a top down approach to education, and it isn't working. It is people who have never been in a classroom since they graduated, making policy decisions about something they know nothing about. They see a "problem" that needs to be "fixed". It the banker telling the farmer that plowing the fields up and down the hill makes more sense than plowing around the contours of the hills. The banker says "I control the money, so you do it my way", ignoring the years of experience and the proven methods of the farmer. When the crop fails because the rain washed it away, the banker blames the farmer, and says he must of done something wrong, because the banker knows his way is better.

 

[Royd]

mom'sfolly :

Here in Texas we have state set curriculum and textbooks. It hasn't helped education in Texas in any way, in fact if you pay any attention to what the state school board is doing in Texas, you will see that it does exactly the opposite. The state school board is elected, and members often have no experience in education. For local school board elections, I went to several of the debates. It was interesting to see how and what people thought would improve local schools, to see at least a couple of members violate open meeting laws by texting, and to see how people with no experience in education thought they could run schools.

School funding is directly tied to NCLB. You have too many children in your school failing, your school gets shut down. These tests do no actually measure academic performance or subject mastery. They measure the very specific criteria set out by the test. Schools must have kids pass, and improving scores to keep their schools running. The system isn't weighted for academic excellence or learning, it is weighted for test taking. It is mandatory pass in several grade levels, which means there is tremendous pressure on kids for that one day which will make or break there passing, even if they know the subject completely. School must keep their ratings up, which means often low performing students get labels, that way they don't get counted in the test score. Minority and poor students must also score within a certain percentage, if the don't...whoops, lets label them as learning disabled to get their numbers off the rating.

While the ideas behind NCLB actually make sense, the implementation hasn't made as much sense. Schools and teachers should be accountable, by NCLB is not the way to do it. Teachers with great teaching skills, and innovative interesting approaches don't necessarily prep their kids for tests as well as the plodding, rule obsessed, rigid teachers. The system actually penalizes good teachers. It doesn't allow teachers to give different assignments to kids with different ability levels, to use individualized approaches to non-conventional learners or to implement curriculum enhancements that make things more interesting for the kids.

Teachers aren't the ones who set the rules. They are the ones who have to follow them. And god forbid that a principal have a school whose test grades are going down, not up. This is a top down approach to education, and it isn't working. It is people who have never been in a classroom since they graduated, making policy decisions about something they know nothing about. They see a "problem" that needs to be "fixed". It the banker telling the farmer that plowing the fields up and down the hill makes more sense than plowing around the contours of the hills. The banker says "I control the money, so you do it my way", ignoring the years of experience and the proven methods of the farmer. When the crop fails because the rain washed it away, the banker blames the farmer, and says he must of done something wrong, because the banker knows his way is better.

Good point you made. Top down isn't working. Why would raising it 3 more notches, to some Whitehouse czar, suddenly be the magical fix? Get rid of the NATIONAL Education Assc. and the bunch of union thugs, who give a wink and a nod at teachers forming a picket line, and leaving the students hanging for a month, right in the middle of the school season.

Get back to teaching the hard fact subjects, which will actually help a child to prosper, in the real world, and quit wasting time on these fuzzy warm, agenda driven social issues.....Learning to do group hugs is absolutely useless, once you hit the street.​

 

[CityGirlintheCountry]

My sister teaches at a small private school. They are exempt from NCLB and are free to teach the kids any way they see fit. While they have some of the same problems with a board of directors made up of parents with no teaching experience, at least the board members have a vested interest in making sure the kids learn.

My sister has spent a great deal of time writing curriculum (as have the other teachers). The kids do a LOT of reading and writing. The subjects are integrated, meaning that it is all history based and everything else is pulled from that period or is about that period. When my eldest niece was in first grade she learned about the Egyptian culture, the Greeks and the Romans. Her literature was about this period as well. My sister teaches 4th grade and they cover this same period (only in more detail). The 4th graders mummified a chicken as part of their studies (a HUGE hit with the kids!!!) and the 1st and 4th graders had a funeral procession and burial of the mummified "pharaoh". The next year they were all tomb robbers and dug it all back up, including the funeral goods the kids had added the year before. When you talk to my niece about that time in history she can speak coherently and intelligently. She is also excited about it and interested in learning more.

Because the parents and teachers control the curriculum, they can demand excellence. The kids begin Latin in 3rd grade. They begin real art lessons in 1st grade (my 7 year old niece once explained to me all about expressionism, pointillism and Japanese style art). They read like crazy. They write constantly (my 9 year old niece is writing stories now and practicing to be a journalist). They memorize everything to music and the girls can rattle this stuff off at the drop of a hat. They are scary smart and getting smarter.

All of this to say, there is no administrator in an office hundreds of miles away determining what is best for these kids. Their teachers and parents determine this. The teachers and parents meet up every 8 weeks or so to discuss how it is going. EVERY child's parent is expected to be involved. No one gets to drop their kids off and walk away. There is constant communication. The result is that these kids are actively involved in learning and are excited about learning. These are normal, average children. There is a mix of gifted kids and normal kids and kids that struggle. There is ADHD, ADD and all the other issues that plague kids in public schools. The only difference is in how the school is being run.

I don't see that the teachers union is the biggest problem in our public schools. The biggest problem is that teachers are not allowed to teach. They are told what to do by administrators who are not in the classroom on a regular basis. They are held hostage by reams of paperwork on trivial things. They are given children whose parents don't care to see them clothed and fed, much less who make sure they do their homework. They are given wild, undisciplined, disrespectful kids who disrupt the classroom and yet they are not allowed to instill discipline or respect. All of the teachers that I know are super dedicated to their work. They work long hours trying to help their kids. They love their students. It is just that their hands are tied by bureaucrats and administrators that have no relationship to the children and no experience in the field. Teaching is an art. It takes a great deal of talent and skill. Most of our teachers are not allowed to teach any more. The result is that our schools are failing.

 

[Stacykins]

At least at the public school my father teaches at, most of the teachers (including my father) despise the fact that cannot choose whether to be a union member or not. It is REQUIRED as part of employment there. They've already said that if the union tries to make them picket, they'll refuse, just because it harms the kids more. Teachers rarely have a choice on whether they are union members or not. It is often part of their employment contracts.

 

[mom'sfolly]

NEA at the national level has nothing to do with NCLB testing laws and all the nonsense involved. In fact, they want the "high stakes, poor-quality" assesments to end, and they advocate a more nuanced approach.

Royd, you are bringing your issues with teacher's unions into the discussion of NCLB. Teachers don't make these tests, and really don't have a lot of input on how the tests are developed. They are expected to get kids to pass. Their livelihoods depend on it.

This is who sets education policy in Texas: an appointed commissioner and an elected school board.