In this post, EduShyster includes an actual, genuine report card received by a fifth-grade student in Massachusetts, whom she calls “Ginny.”
You must see it to believe it.
The report card has room for grades in history and social studies, but the spaces are blank. No time for such arcane stuff.
EduShyster checks the history framework for fifth-graders. It is ambitious. But the student was not exposed to any of it.
Now I can guess what you’re thinking—does Ginny really need to learn any of this old timey stuff anyway, since she can just look it up on her phone when she gets to college? Also, maps are SO over as we have GPS now, and by the time Ginny learns to drive her car will drive itself. Also, also, democracy seems to be on its way out anyway, so far better that Ginny devote her time to practice choosing between some predetermined choices.
Is this how we prepare our future citizens?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The title should read: “What happens when test prep becomes the curriculum”?
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IMHO, this idea that certain subjects like geography are not important is just insane.
As juts one example: Map reading and navigating with topographic map and compass are great activities that i have used with people of all ages (from elementary school through adults).
Maps are absolutely fascinating, dense with information both current and historical.
they can be used to teach all sorts of things: geometry, graphing (of how height profile changes from point A to B, for example), history (based on place names, “robbers roost’ in southern Utah, for example, which was the hideout of Butch cassidy and the Wild Bunch) and in conjunction with a compass, to teach elements of physics.
When i lived out west, I did a lot of exploring in mountains and canyons and spent days poring over maps before my trips and hours with them out in the field.
I have driven cross country many times and all over the western US and, on long trips, at least, actually much prefer the old Rand McNally atlas to any GPS that i have ever used.
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And most maps are incredibly interesting to students as well. When I bring out a good map, the kids are completely engrossed in it.
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Especially topo maps and especially ones in southern Utah, with all the colorful place names.
I once took a jeep-supported mountain bike trip into the Maze district of Canyonlands that began on a wash called “Poison Spring Canyon” outside of Hanksville.
If that name does not get your interest up, nothing will!
it was named for the arsenic in the spring water. good to know before you take a long drink on a hot day!
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Yeah, Southern Utah is quite the place for weird names! I mean, where in the heck does Panguitch come from?
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From the last sentence of the posting:
“Is this how we prepare our future citizens?”
If the owner of this blog will allow me a little latitude, this reminds me of a joke I heard when I was very young. There are many versions online but I give the following:
[start]
As the Lone Ranger and Tonto were riding along towards the north, they spotted a war party of 50 Apaches coming at them. They turned south and spotted a war party of 100 braves coming at them. Then, they turned east and spotted a war party of 150 braves coming at them. Finally, they turned west and spotted a war party of 200 braves coming at them.
The Lone Ranger turned to his friend and said, “Well, Tonto, this is the end, there’s not much we can do.”
Tonto looked back at the Lone Ranger, and replied, “What you
mean WE, white man?”
[end]
Link http://www.yuksrus.com/ethnic_native_american.html
So half in jest and a bigger half in seriousness [hey! rheephorm math is a marvel to behold!] I would remind viewers of this blog that it all depends on who’s defining the word “we.”
If by “we” that means the vast majority of people in this country—a catastrophe for democracy and fair play.
If by “we” that means the heavyweights of the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement and their enforcers and enablers and “thought leaders” and bean counters—then that report card is a hard data point that assures them that all is going right in their war on public schools and in their never-ending quest to dumb down everyone else.
That’s how I see it…
😏
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They’re picking up Sherrod Brown’s federal attempt at regulating Ohio charter schools in Ohio:
“U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown blasted Ohio’s charter school system for having rampant waste and fraud Thursday as he spelled out the main goals of a national charter school accountability bill he proposed this week.
“We want to make sure these charter schools effectively educate children,” Brown said. “Right now they’re not.”
Among his major proposals: Making charter school management and finances more open to the public, tracking how charter schools fit into each area’s education plans and making sure that making profits isn’t more important than educating kids.
Brown, an Ohio Democrat, pointed at his home state’s for-profit charter school operators – private companies that often receive 90 percent or more of a school’s tax dollars – as damaging kids’ educations. And he blamed the Ohio – and other – legislatures for bowing to the for-profit “political operators” and their campaign donations instead of making sure they perform better.”
I don’t think they can regulate hundreds of charter schools any better from DC than they’ve been able to regulate them from Columbus. I think schools probably had local oversight for a good reason because it doesn’t make sense to regulate them from the state or national level. But, I appreciate the effort since our state lawmakers have apparently “relinquished” their regulatory role to private companies.
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/07/sen_sherrod_brown_seeks_to_sto.html
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This is amazing from someone who used to work for the Obama Administration:
“The fact is, the federal testing requirements have not changed since 2002. While federal teacher evaluation policies prompted some states and districts to add more tests, none are required and most are not needed. State and local administrators would rather blame the feds than take responsibility for locally-driven overtesting and excessive test prep, but the real culprits are at the local level.”
They’re supposedly “partners” with local public schools yet they blame schools for the test-obsessed culture they promoted and refer to our schools as ” the real culprits?”
With “friends” like these in DC who needs enemies, right? Why such a hostile, needlessly adversarial approach to public schools? Are we supposed to “side” with the Obama Administration over local public schools? How ridiculous.
http://educationpost.org/diane-ravitchs-critique-of-arne-duncan-falls-far-short-of-the-truth/#.VaPsAUbxeSq
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Chiara,
Maybe now they will respond to Jeff Bryant’s searing critique of Arne, in which Jeff called Arne an “oaf.”
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And the sad part is that he is much worse than an “oaf”–he has destroyed our schools & our children’s futures, something most of us would consider a huge civil rights violation & a federal crime, yet he & his family will go on with their merry, privileged lives. In Chicago, he will probably get a cushy job w/the Joyce Foundation (that’s a real dot-connector) or with Pear$on, which has a huge campus in a lovely, tree-lined Chicago suburb. Or–as I mentioned in an earlier post–back to CPS as supt.-? (Naw–he wouldn’t want the flack.)
I think the words “never again” are appropriate here.
Bernie 2016.
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I just had to share. I clicked on the link to edushyster’s article, followed that to another article on Campbell Brown’s edu-reform website, clicked on a link there TO campbell brown’s website
https://www.the74million.org/article/campbell-brown-journalism-advocacy-and-why-not-every-story-has-two-sides
and realized Campbell Brown’s reformster website is not quite ready for primetime. It included links to dummy (as in not real) articles like this one:
http://staging.the74million.org/article/in-search-of
I guess her $14 million budget does not guarantee competence. Click around the real website and see links to other not-quite fixed articles, or, like the case above, non-articles with great graphics and assemblages of words that do not actually qualify as sentences. (I mean worse than the usual reformer word scramble).
OK reformster minions! You are being paid to read and post on Diane’s website. Make sure you earn your keep and report the link problems back to Reformster PR Central ASAP.
Note for the oligarchs funding ed deform: to set a credible education news site, you shouldn’t rely on a PR firm.
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Maybe the computer program that grades essay questions also wrote these articles!
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Or maybe Campbell Brown wrote the dummy articles.
But on the subject of computer grading, if we could just get the computers to take the tests — in addition to grading them — we’d be all set.
Then while the computers (and folks like Bill Gates) were kept busy in their infinite loops, teachers and students could go back to doing what is important: teaching and learning
Just a thought.
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Reblogged this on donotmalignme.
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My sons just finished 1st and 2nd grade in a MA public school, their report cards were similar to this with dozens of bullet points for ELA and math specifics and barely a mention of anything else.
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