To say I was a weak math student is a little like saying Hitler was a bad guy. Math teachers worked with me after class, my parents tutored me and I’d think I understood how to use the Point-Slope Formula to calculate something or other. Then I’d take a test and find out otherwise.
I never flunked a class but that was only because back in the 70s my math teachers must have assured themselves I was never going to design bridges – at least none they would drive on – and they held their noses to pass me. Had I needed to earn a proficient rating in math to graduate, I’d currently be the oldest living high school senior.
Yet, remarkably all my life I’ve found work that I could do without higher level math. This isn’t to brag about my ignorance; it’s a plea for reason in the face of the deadline under No Child Left Behind that all children be proficient in math and reading by 2014.
On Sunday, The Morning Call published the local results of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment showing more schools failed to make “adequate yearly progress” under the law. That’s partly because the state has again raised the bar on what percentage of students must earn proficient scores. Some schools, including a few in Bethlehem, East Penn and Parkland, met overall goals but still got failing grades because not enough of their special education students were deemed proficient.
All but the most developmentally disabled students take the regular PSSA. I’ve seen sample problems on the math PSSAs and my question is this: If students in special education can do these problems, what are they doing in special ed?
The Obama Administration recently rolled out new guidelines that would allow states to apply for waivers for parts of No Child Left Behind so long as they adopt certain reform measures, including closing schools with low standardized test scores, turning them into charters or firing the principal. That’s like holding a dentist responsible for your cavities when he can’t control how often you brush or floss. It still gives too much credence to standardized test scores.
Local school boards and administrators are better able to decide if a principal is good at his or her job than someone in Washington looking at a handful of numbers.
Accepting that not all students are going to be good at higher level math and reading is not an invitation to dumb down curriculum. Curriculums have been dumbed down plenty. Under high stakes testing, teachers must stay on lessons tied to the test until every kid gets it – an approach that leaves good math students bored to death.
Meanwhile, teachers and administrators fearing for their jobs start practice tests months in advance – crowding out lessons and classes that broaden the curriculum. You never know what subject is going to catch fire with a student, leading to a lifelong passion and career.
PSSAs should be just one tool in the educational tool box; we need to stop using them as a hammer.
Let School Boards and local parents determine education policy? That is equivalent to patients in a doctors office determining how the doctor should operate. The best predictor of a student's performance is how rich their parents are. Poor parents? Forget school, you can get plenty of jobs. White kids do better than ethnic minorities. To say that it is because they are smarter means we have to agree that Asian students are smarter than whites (but only American whites). This requires math to refute-- forget it; get government out of the education system- dumb is good -period.
This is a good arguement for earlier tracking of kids, which unfortunately is politically incorrect to many. More tracking would be a good systematic improvement for our schools, which would not only improve scores on tests on minimum standards for all, but it would also improve learning of "stretch" goals for those who could reach for more..
In elementary schools, students could also be grouped by ability and take the appropriate exam.
I'm sure you're right about gifted special ed students with IEP's not being included in PSSA summaries, since that no child left behind reporting necessarily conforms to is a federal law and the PA classifcation that includes gifted in SE wouldn't necessarily apply. But AD's point original posting that many special education / IEP students are very high performing in spite of their emotional or medical problems and some of their needs might fall between the cracks is true. My point that in PA, special education includes the gifted is true, too, if they are identified and get IEP's. I'd argue that if we'd want to evaluate teachers or schools for their performance in serving these students, we'd need to look at tougher tests for the advanced subject matter, and not just the minimum proficiency ala PSSA. C.F.
But to criticize Margie's opinion ending with "shame on you" for wanting to eliminate boredom of the gifted is just wrong. That too is a problem that needs to be addressed, and it is with PA's system identifying the gifted as Special ed and providing IEP's. And as I said earlier here, using minimum proficiency PSSA testing to evaluate schools and teachers of the gifted is even sillier than using it to evaluate teachers and schools for those with limitations.
Bottom line the tests are only one moment in a school year. Year to year tracking is what is necessary to demonstrate growth.
Only real problem with PSSA scores is that ultimately it is predestining failure as there will always be a spread. The PSSA is not a valid way of measuring an individual students proficiency; it is a way of evaluating schools. Certainly the score students get are germane- raw scores are used by some schools, and it is useful to at least find students with deficiencies. Re the gifted label. I totally agree with the professor. It tends to inflate the ego and many students and parents believe gifted means you don't have to work hard rather than you have to work hard to be gifted. At MIT, the students who have the hardest adjustment to college are the ones who have taken a large number of AP courses (gifted students). They find quickly in that highly competitive environment that they have to work much harder to succeed -- something they were not used to in HS. Re bored gifted students -- that is a condemnation of teachers who give instruction rather than teach. Look at Upper Saint Clair schools; they don't have problems with bored gifted.
I may be in the minority, but NCLB is good for American Education. It establishes a set of common minimum standards and requires schools to work toward them. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has been active in setting the standards, so teachers are involved. Common standards are NECESSARY to insure educational uniformity and a common platform for comparsion. We require driver ed students to be proficient to prevent highway carnage. Why not require profiency in all subjects? Is NCLB perfect? Not even close. It can, and should, be improved. No one with a shred of common sense believes that 100% proficiency will be achieved in any district by 2014, but it does not set the bar artificially low. It requiress everyone to aim high, which is what we want. Don't blame Bush either. Ted Kennedy was the major driving force behind NCLB, so both parties recognized the importance of standards. I do find it funny that the same educators who have advocated and implemented inclusive education and homogeneous grouping are against holding the students to the same standard. That is hypocracy. One of the answers is simple, if a student doesn't meet the minimum standards (or IEP standard), they repeat the grade until they pass. No test has higher stakes than the SATs, but most agree that they are needed. NCLB needs tweaking
As for this statement - "I do find it funny that the same educators who have advocated and implemented inclusive education and homogeneous grouping are against holding the students to the same standard" - I wish I understood what you were trying to convey, because while it is nice-sounding sentence, it doesn't actually make any sense. Additionally, it is NCLB that insists upon homogeneity and it is IDEA that insists upon "least restrictive environment" which leads to inclusion. As a college professor, over the last 5 years, all I have seen are students who graduated from nice schools who don't really know how to read (i.e., comprehend) or do math and they certainly don't know what it means to think critically about a topic or subject. They do know how to memorize information and pass a test and then forget what they memorized. Hypocrisy, not hypocracy. Too funny.
2. Show me where NCLB insists on homogeneous grouping? If it did, districts would be banned from teaching remedial math courses that are commonly used for low scoring students. Least restrictive environment rules came at the behest of educational "advocates", also know as college professors. 3. All students in a class should be assessed on the uniform standards for the material. If a student can not do the work, they should in a class consistent with their abilities, not used as an excuse for the class not meeting standards. 4. PSSA tests have constructive response questions that measure students critical thinking skills. 5. Don't blame NCLB for lack of thinking skills. It only says that students should be able to meet the standards. It does not dictate how the material is taught. It correctly leaves those decisions to individual schools / districts. Your statement implies that students do not can not think or memorize. If that is the case, then the schools are indeed failing. (Of course, the ivory tower believes that all critical thinking occurs in the colleges or occupy campsites.) 6. Where did I say that students repeat grades for PSSA scores? It looks like your comprehension isn't very good either. Retaining students is extremely rare and pushing them along for social reasons only increases the student's academic problems.