FLOUNDER ALERT: What has happened, Obama and I agree?

I feel the problem isn't that there is standardized testing. The problem is that it's "do or die" standardized testing. A well above average student that's poor at taking tests (which seems to be due to the stress of this sort of testing), you get poor scores. If we're talking about an average student that's good at taking tests, they will show to be average. They're good at taking tests.

Then we have legislation that expects every student to show the same growth per year. An ESE student may never show growth. You can't expect a student that is only expected to learn life skills to show the same growth as an average student.

Teachers should be graded, but not by the current model. I agree that it should be more by the administration and less by test scores. You can tell which teachers are good teachers. Heck, I can tell which teachers are good teachers as a substitute teacher. For some, teaching is a paycheck. They really shouldn't be teachers. For others, it's a lifelong dream and they're good at it.

I have pretty strong opinions about unions, but I'm not going to flounder this thread that hard. I'll just say that administrators play favorites.

tuna55 wrote: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110328/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_education_2 Standardized tests suck. They suck for kids, they suck for teachers, they suck for America. Paying based on merit rocks, but this doesn't count as merit. It's like judging the performance of my car by how many green lights I hit on the way to work.

Standardized tests don't suck by themselves.

When the criteria is allowed to be set by a union, it sucks.

When input can be given on the criteria by the same politician that has input on union terms, benefits, and budget, then it sucks.

When influence comes to bear on the criteria because someone announced 'not enough people were successful at it,' it sucks.

When teachers within the system itself have direct input on the criteria or processing, no matter how altruistic, history has proven this sucks too.

And when the importance of standardised testing is escalated to the point of imbalance, it sucks. It should represent a very important component, but not the whole.

MrJoshua wrote: In reply to fast_eddie_72: The performance has been fading for years with the exact freedom teachers claim they need.

Uuuummmm. Huh?

I'm posting from the United States of America. Are you in another country that has given teachers some modicum of freedom to do as they see fit? Here in the US we've legislated every last detail of how they're supposed to do their jobs, then told them they're not doing it right.

No no, standardized testing DOES suck by itself.

My wife is a 4th generation teacher. Including her, her aunts, uncles, and cousins there are about 12-16 active teachers from preschool to college professor at any given time. (my wife was one of four, her mom was one of 6 and her mom's sisters had mucho kids).. They run the gamut from Montessori to South Side Chicago(really rough) High School to a midwest Bible college professor to professor at a large southwestern state school.

Not one of them likes NCLB and the rules it imposes. They all pretty much hate standardized testing.

I'll tell you something else. Good teachers do it because they have a passion for it. You start racking and stacking them like you do in a corporation and the good ones will be gone in a minute to private schools. Folks like my wife and her family, don't live for the paycheck or advancement of themselves; They live for the excitement in their pupils and inspiring that great spark that only a good teacher can.

But.. We live in a world where metrics drive the behavior.. So I say to those who want more metrics.. Make sure you design them well. Because you will get exactly what you design, but usually not what you intend.

All I can relate it to is personal experience. Went to public school up to 5th grade - then to private school. Way more demanding. Same number of students in the classroom. We moved when I started 10th grade. Went to public school again. By my last semester of senior year, the public school subject matter was just catching up to where I was at the end of 9th grade in private school. From a kid's simplistic view, the biggest difference I saw was a much greater expectation from the students. If you don't expect much, you won't get much. If I had kids, I think I would be trying really hard to have them avoid public schools.

In reply to madmallard:

That's the thing. The criteria ISN'T set by the teacher's union. The criteria is either state mandated or federally mandated. The union has about as much to do with the unrealistic testing goals as a can of Pepsi has to do with the performance of my cordless drill.

A lot of the legislation sounds good to the average person, like "make sure EVERY student gains a year of knowledge for every year in school". When that is interpreted to mean every student has to know the same thing, it's not going to fly. My wife teaches at a school that has more Spanish-speaking students than English-speaking students. There's a good portion that enter kindergarten not knowing any English. You can't expect a Spanish-speaking student in one year to know how to read the short books that every English-speaking kindergarten kid can. When you can't speak a language, it's hard to learn in said language.

I do want to add that I don't feel that the government has any business running education. That includes everything, funding and regulation, all the way to school lunches. I'm pretty stinkin' liberal and that's my view on it. I want to be a teacher, but not in a public school. That's coming from someone who is a substitute teacher, is married to a teacher, has a mother that teaches, and a father that is part of the support staff at an elementary school.

MrJoshua wrote: How do you judge the teachers?

Somehow we can quantify ourselves as inferior to many other countries when it comes to math, science, reading... etc. We can even tie it to dollars spent and see that we spend more and get less for the money.

Does anyone else wonder why we don't use that test procedure as the basis for developing a measure of performance? Does anyone else wonder why we don't steal a page or two from the the guys in the top slot when it comes to developing programs that will yield success?

I think it is because the people who are charged with fixing the system are what the result of that system yield

bluej wrote: "...there does need to be some sort of national standard..."

No! This is a fallacy. Washington needs to return oversight of all the business of education to the states where it belongs. The current "national standard" is mediocrity.

1988RedT2 wrote:

bluej wrote: "...there does need to be some sort of national standard..."

No! This is a fallacy. Washington needs to return oversight of all the business of education to the states where it belongs. The current "national standard" is mediocrity.

Thanks!

And the constitution doesn't allow the federal government to handle education AT ALL. But that wasn't my point. My point was: In the narrow scope of the expansion of standardized testing, Obama and I agree. I read his comments, and I completely agree with him, and I can't figure out what is happening. My world has been rocked. Up is down, left is right, Honda's have torque, 350 rebuilds are really expensive, I can't stand steak. AHHH!

In reply to 1988RedT2:

You're saying that there shouldn't be some minimum expectation of the level of education each state provides? I agree that the power of how to achieve that minimum expectation should be in the states and local communities hands, but there has to be some sort of level to be expected from all publicly educated children in the US. I'm not claiming to have the answer on how to make it all work but I think that if we want to raise the level of education in our country, we have to know where we all stand relative to one another. Maybe that doesn't have to be tied directly into federal funding. Just put the raw data out there so X state or county can know it's the worst in the country or state and then leave it up to them on how they want to fix it.

In reply to tuna55:

Even a broken watch is right twice a day. Maybe Obama's listening to people who really know something about education and taking their advice. We can't be experts on everything, you know.

1988RedT2 wrote:

bluej wrote: "...there does need to be some sort of national standard..."

No! This is a fallacy. Washington needs to return oversight of all the business of education to the states where it belongs. The current "national standard" is mediocrity.

QFT

In reply to Brett_Murphy and tuna55:

It's taken me too long to realize that it's not about whether or not I think that the Right's leaders are full of... something. It turns out that if I calm down about that stuff, I can often have a sane and useful exchange of ideas with people from "the other side of the aisle."

Obama is to a great extent a figurehead and a lightning rod. Just like Bush. I don't need to agree or disagree with either of them. It's the several million other people like me in this democracy I need to come to terms with.

Not to wander too far off the central topic, but I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago: My girlfriend and I (pretty heavily left-leaning) were visiting her sister and brother in law (relatively far right). We were out for beers at a local brewpub and were basically just discussing how having a civil discussion about stuff was the important part. There was a guy at the next table who had veins popping out on his forehead and looked like he was about to throw a chair, and we hadn't even really gotten into any issues. He was apparently utterly infuriated that the conservatives would bother talking to liberals, or maybe vice versa... It blew us all away.

Sorry for the tangent, but kudos for not rejecting an idea just because you usually disagree with the person who said it.

Derick Freese wrote: In reply to madmallard: That's the thing. The criteria ISN'T set by the teacher's union. The criteria is either state mandated or federally mandated. The union has about as much to do with the unrealistic testing goals as a can of Pepsi has to do with the performance of my cordless drill.

Thats not exclusively true. In states with strong teacher's union presences, they DO have input on the criteria because they have the state wrapped around their finger.

Thats the problem I have. Too many cooks in the kitchen in what SHOULD amount to a simple soup. Important? Yes. Representative of the whole meal that is 'education?' hell no.

And anyone that thinks standardising is a magic bullet is deluding themselves at least as much as people who think it is worthless.

My wife teaches at a school that has more Spanish-speaking students than English-speaking students. There's a good portion that enter kindergarten not knowing any English. You can't expect a Spanish-speaking student in one year to know how to read the short books that every English-speaking kindergarten kid can. When you can't speak a language, it's hard to learn in said language.

Thats a cultural problem, not an educational problem. Blame parents. :/

madmallard wrote: Thats not exclusively true. In states with strong teacher's union presences, they DO have input on the criteria because they have the state wrapped around their finger.

I would say that's the best argument I've heard for a strong teacher's union. I think it is appropriate for educators to have some say in, well, education. If they would stick to issues like this and stop protecting poor teachers I would be a stronger supporter of the union.

madmallard wrote: Thats the problem I have. Too many cooks in the kitchen in what SHOULD amount to a simple soup. Important? Yes. Representative of the whole meal that is 'education?' hell no.

I completely agree. I would suggest that state and local educators should be left alone to do their jobs.

Thats a cultural problem, not an educational problem. Blame parents. :/

Unfortunately, people insist on blaming the schools for the failure of parents. All the kids who have parents with money go to the private school. The kids with parents who care get them choiced into a better school. When all that is left is kids who's parents don't give a damn, we say "what's wrong with the school?!"

Um, nothing wrong with the school. What's wrong with America?

In reply to madmallard:

No Child Left Behind isn't a state program. It's by fat the largest driver of state performance criteria. Most states with heavy union influence tend to have better education programs.

How do you blame parents when they have to have letters translated to Spanish when they are sent home, and when they require an interpreter in the room for all meetings with those parents. It IS an educational problem when these students cost more to educate and perform more poorly. To add to that, English isn't an official language of the United States, but it is the only language taught in the vast majority of public schools.

In reply to ransom:

I don't fit into a political party, so I try to vote to keep the two parties holding each other in check. When both the far right and the far left are unhappy, we're probably doing alright. When it comes down to it, I think most people in the country are pretty moderate overall. Yes, there are a few lightning rod issues that can divide people pretty quickly, but for most issues there is some common ground.

The problem is that the dialogue in the country has been killed due to pundits on both sides who are paid more money to create controversy and division. Olberman and Limbaugh, I'm looking at you.

. I think it is appropriate for educators to have some say in, well, education. If they would stick to issues like this and stop protecting poor teachers I would be a stronger supporter of the union.

I have a problem when teachers who are an active participant in the cycle of education have too much input on the standards contained in any standarization.

Its strikes me as asinine to expect any modicum of impartiality, or measurable standard, when the people who set the criteria have a direct-level vested interest in the outcoming results of that standard in practice.

Thus, no matter how altruistic people think it may be, teachers who are currently active in any union or in any educational system in which they have influence over should have little to NO input on an standardisations. While this is possible both with and without the presence of a union, the union presence 'locks down' the vicious cycle of inaccountability even tighter.

History has shown us when the pressure is on, the group will serve its own interests. Standards will be modified to make it look like more is being done than actually is. Look at the educational system in my own state and capital.

No Child Left Behind isn't a state program. It's by fat the largest driver of state performance criteria. Most states with heavy union influence tend to have better education programs.

You're gonna have to give me a standard that you judge 'better' by. Dropout rate? Grades? SAT scores? Job placement? College degrees? Because its revealed with the recent debates in Wisconsin, and with ongoing studies of the last 20 years, the unions don't statistically offer any improvement, nor do increases in funding corellate to results.

How do you blame parents when they have to have letters translated to Spanish when they are sent home, and when they require an interpreter in the room for all meetings with those parents. It IS an educational problem when these students cost more to educate and perform more poorly. To add to that, English isn't an official language of the United States, but it is the only language taught in the vast majority of public schools.

It -is- the parent's fault, not the educators fault, that the child was brought up in the United States within an isolated culture that did not teach them basic English.

It would be really asinine (for example) for me to marry, move to Japan, have a kid and raise them in English until school age, and then get mad at the school that doesn't translate their Japanese syllabus into English for me, and the cirriculum for my kid... So because I culturally isolated my kid because we didn't speak Japanese, all of a sudden its the educational system's problem and responsibility?

In reply to madmallard:

No, it is in the educational system's best interest to help you do all of that for your child if you were in Japan. As a system, the government has a vested interest in producing literate, capable children from their school systems in order to have a sustainable force of productive workers.

madmallard wrote: I have a problem when teachers who are an active participant in the cycle of education have too much input on the standards contained in any standarization. Its strikes me as asinine to expect any modicum of impartiality, or measurable standard, when the people who set the criteria have a direct-level vested interest in the outcoming results of that standard in practice.

As always, you make a good and well thought out point. I realy appreciate the way you participate in these discussions. I would disagree a little, in that I think administrators should set the standards for their employees.

But another thought- when we talk about standardization, I don't believe we should have one standard that is used throughout the country. Here in Denver, we have a couple of really outstanding schools. The Denver School of Science and Technology is nationally recognized as an outstanding school. They're able to do what they do because, as a charter school, they don't have to conform to the same rules as the other schools.

It seems to me that there should be more than one solution. And schools that are clearly doing a better job should be able to be copied by other schools. No other school in Denver can copy the DSST model because it doesn't conform to the nationally mandated curriculum.

Nor can they provide the resources that DSST provides because their student population is too big and their financial resources too small. Since DSST was founded, 100% of their students have graduated and 100% of them have been accepted to college. Why would we tell other schools they can't do what is being done there?

madmallard wrote: It would be really asinine (for example) for me to marry, move to Japan, have a kid and raise them in English until school age, and then get mad at the school that doesn't translate their Japanese syllabus into English for me, and the cirriculum for my kid... So because I culturally isolated my kid because we didn't speak Japanese, all of a sudden its the educational system's problem and responsibility?

Okay, this is an area where we can almost certainly find common ground. I don't disagree with your point here. We may disagree on what responsibility our society should bear with regard to accommodating all students. But that's a separate issue. On this point we agree.

Here’s the thing. As it stands now, many schools have to accommodate students who do not speak English. It just is a fact. And doing so costs money. Again, it’s just a fact. We can decide that we’re no longer going to accommodate those students and that would be a fine decision. One I would disagree with, but a fine, heads up decision based on the available resources and what we as Americans decide we are going to do. That’s fine. But if a state legislature, or a judge decide that a school has to accommodate those students, but fails to provide the financial means to do so, we’re setting the school up to fail. We have to decide one way or the other.

We see the same thing with the Federal budget. It’s all well and good to “take away the check book” and cut taxes. But they didn’t stop spending anything. In fact, they spent more. And now we’re in a hole. Schools don’t have the option of running at a deficit. So things just get worse.

There are a lot of people out there making bad decisions. Just my opinion. I’m like you, I wouldn’t do something to my child that would put them at a serious disadvantage going into school. But many people do. That’s how it is. So we have to decide. What are we going to do with those kids? Do we remove any likely chance at the American Dream, or do we try to give them a shot? Is the expense at the school level worth the investment to try to build a contributing member of society, or would we rather deal with the consequences later.

Wondering off topic a bit, but 100% related. Why is it the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world? It’s ironic that the “land of the free” takes freedom from more of her citizens than any other country. How is that happening and what is it costing us? The loss on that end is devastating. Not only are we taking away one American’s shot at productivity, but we’re giving up on another tax payer who could help contribute to society at large.

I met with some people here in Colorado years ago. They told me that, at one time, they used ECE enrolment statistics to forecast future need for jail cells. They said it worked really well too. They only stopped because it was such bad publicity.

I have a problem when teachers who are an active participant in the cycle of education have too much input on the standards contained in any standarization. Its strikes me as asinine to expect any modicum of impartiality, or measurable standard, when the people who set the criteria have a direct-level vested interest in the outcoming results of that standard in practice.

So would it be more appropriate to have someone completely disconnected from the classroom making all of the rules with no input from anyone? That's what happens now, and we have programs like NCLB to show for it.

History has shown us when the pressure is on, the group will serve its own interests. Standards will be modified to make it look like more is being done than actually is. Look at the educational system in my own state and capital.

This goes for every group. When voters demand better education, we end up with standards and programs that don't align with reality. Legislation is written that expects unrealistic goals. The political types then point to this data that states that it's now the education system's fault, not theirs, and the mob goes on to hunt a different witch.

I'm not saying the public shouldn't have say in the educational system, but I'm saying that it shouldn't be testing for unrealistic goals.

You're gonna have to give me a standard that you judge 'better' by. Dropout rate? Grades? SAT scores? Job placement? College degrees? Because its revealed with the recent debates in Wisconsin, and with ongoing studies of the last 20 years, the unions don't statistically offer any improvement, nor do increases in funding corellate to results.

My only data to back this up is purely circumstantial. I will say that any student that moves from any of the states in the North East to Florida will either move up a grade or will be completely bored because they've already covered the material and understand it.

It -is- the parent's fault, not the educators fault, that the child was brought up in the United States within an isolated culture that did not teach them basic English.

I agree that the root cause is the parents. They probably should have taught the children. The issue is that it is expected for that Spanish-speaking student to be on level with their English-speaking counterpart in subjects such as reading and language development. It's less of a deal once the students move up in grades, but during their years in primary school, it's practically impossible.

Personally, this is one of those situations where I say "If you expect these results, you need to fund these programs". Require bilingual teachers in the first 3-4 years of school or require the students to attend Pre-K so that they don't enter kindergarten without the basic skills required to communicate.

I think teachers should be accountable for actions in the classroom. If the majority of the students in any given classroom aren't showing any growth, then the issue often isn't with the students or parents, but with the teacher. I actually do have quite a problem with tenured teachers being practically immune to everything. I've seen some really good first year teachers layed off while tenured teachers that shouldn't have a job get to stick around.

In reply to Brett_Murphy:

I'm sorry, but to put it bluntly, that world view aint' gonna get you #$$#@ in life. Other countries will laugh in your faces. And I picked Japan because thats a country that places a high cultural value on English literacy all the way thru college. You'll still get buffed.

The government educational system has no 'best interest,' definable in a real sense. The government education is -supposed- to serve the public's interested by way of officials elected to administrate the educational system. But the fact is, that component alone makes the system more political than anything else. The function of any government administration is to secure as much funding for itself as it can, and for its elected officials to keep their job more than do their job.

As a system, therefore, it is in the interest of the politicians in charge of government education for the 'subject' of that education to not be able to question its authority coherantly, to be obfuscated from the means to exert public power over the government, and to produce people of modest literacy and capability to join the workforce as productive tax payers.

I can understand and appreciate your idealism. The reality is too muddled to ever produce the results you seek.

Here's the larger problem I have with the discussion.

People fail.

We seem to be obsessed with framing the education discussion too much on passing on the first try. The fact is people fail. Its not necessarily a character flaw.

Paraphrasing George Carlin: Kids never get to hear the all important character building words "You lost, Jimmy." The first time they hear it is in their 20s when their boss calls them in to tell them "Get your !$#! and get out, you're a loser."

People fail. It really is that simple. Didn't anyone watch Rocky Balboa? It aint about how hard you can hit, its about how hard you can -get- hit and keep moving forward.

The discussion on the effectiveness of education hinges too much on the pass-fail of these standards. Failure of a standard is NOT the failure of education, it is an important barometer that should be used to plan future action.

Instead, too many political, union, administrative, and 'child expert' figures put together way too much emphasis, influence, money, and power in the pursuit of passing or meeting this standard.

The standard is meaningless in that regard, but not meaningless overall. What SHOULD happen is instead of focusing on 'meeting' the standard arbitrarily, is using the result of the standard for the educational planning future of the participants.

That CAN'T be done on the federal level. It must be done on the local level. But the local level CAN'T set a reasonable barometer that will work nationwide to give an indication of progress. The two to be most effective must work together. Instead, we have the federal system trying to pass laws to 'enforce' the standardisation when thats the entirely wrong way to use the standardisation in the first place.

But the discussion always gets shifted to pass/fail results, and the knee-jerk immature reaction that failing is ALWAYS bad and should be avioded at any cost.

Its just plain wrong.