LANGUAGE ARTS-NEW MEXICO

Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jones

Here's a good essay about NCLB by the 2008 New York State Teacher of the Year: 

November 7, 2007

Teachers need role in fixing  No Child Left Behind

Richard Ognibene

 Guest essayist

Question #1: Mrs. Smith and Mr. Jones both teach fifth grade. In May, only 40 percent of Mrs. Smith's students passed the state's standardized reading test, while 97 percent of Mr. Jones' students passed the same test. Who is the better teacher? A) Mrs. Smith. B) Mr. Jones. C) More information is necessary. If you picked "C," you understand the inherent complexities of education.

Question #2: Mrs. Smith works in a high-needs district. In September, most of her pupils read at a second-grade level, but through brilliant pedagogical strategies and dogged determination, she brought all of her class to a fourth-grade reading level or higher. Some of her students managed to pass the state reading test; all of them showed tremendous growth. Mr. Jones works in a more affluent district. In September, all of his students read at a fifth-grade level and by May most of them read at the sixth-grade level. Who is the better teacher?

According to the No Child Left Behind act, Jones is wildly successful as his students have demonstrated adequate yearly progress. Smith is not so fortunate. According to NCLB, she is an abysmal failure; her students have not shown AYP (adequate yearly progress) and her school will lose funding if this continues.

In a perfect world, every pupil would enter the classroom with age-appropriate skills. However, as a teacher, I am acutely aware that our world is far from perfect. My job is to welcome all of my students and help them improve. I have no control over the skills they have as they enter my room, but I have much to say about the skills they have when they leave. By that standard, Smith should be recognized for her outstanding work.

Read the rest here.

The Ever-Looming Test

From the Boston Globe:

Waging a battle on standardized tests

By Dan Brown  |  November 3, 2007

TEACHERS NEED to pick their battles. I scanned my fourth-grade students in the Bronx and considered several battles in my mind.

Battle Number One: Manolo arrived in my classroom determined to fight the world. His mother had died when he was in second grade and he had to repeat the year. However, Manolo took substantial steps when he began to write creative stories, favoring historical fiction in which he inserted himself into a famous event. His writing revealed great imagination and interest, but his spelling and mechanics remained poor, and state exams continued to label him a failure.

Battle Number Two: Sara entered my classroom leaps ahead of her peers. She wrote hilarious, irreverent poetry and had already mastered grade-level math. She fired off endless questions about current events. Sara was a dream student, hungry to be challenged. However, the administrators at my school discouraged creative lesson planning in order to cram in endless "drill-and-kill" packets of basic skills test-taking strategies.

Battle Number Three: Eddie was in his fourth year in fourth grade because of absences and test failures. It seemed impossible to get him engaged in class. However, he loved to draw and showed a remarkable, natural talent for perspective sketching. Tragically, my class was deprived of all arts in order to allot more time for standardized test preparation.

How could I help these children face their challenges? Every moment, I felt pulled in 26 directions, invariably drawn to the louder children who act out. And then there was the ever-looming Test.

Read the rest here.