Archives for category: Childhood
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Third Grade Teacher: What Are We Testing?

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2014 //
27

On the website Testtalk.org, there are many interesting comments about the three days of testing English Language Arts. Why does it require so many hours to find out how well children read? No one knows, or if they know, they aren’t saying.

Here is a thoughtful reflection by a third-grade teacher:

“I have been wondering for years now what these tests are really accomplishing, and this year I am more dismayed than ever. I firmly believe that they are not even measuring what they claim to be assessing.

“You cannot measure reading comprehension when the student has to spend all of his or her energy decoding the text. You cannot measure writing ability when the topic of their writing is dependent upon understanding of a text that was above their reading level. You cannot test math skills when the students have to spend so much time just figuring out what the task even requires of them.

“You cannot really measure ANYTHING when students are too fatigued to function (which most third graders are after about 30 minutes of one activity, let alone 60 or more). And most importantly, you cannot measure progress when where the students STARTED is never taken into account.

“As a special educator, this last one is most troubling to me. Year after year, I have to answer for why my students are not progressing, when in reality, they are making TREMENDOUS strides in their abilities to function in school and perform basic life skills and academic tasks. Sadly, these will never come to light if both the baseline assessment AND the culminating assessment are so far out of their reach it is like putting a foreign language in front of them.

“I know we want to be the best and brightest country in the world, but the fact remains that humans do not learn new things overnight. Everyone learns differently, learns at their own pace, and has different ways of showing what they have learned.

“One of the first things I learned in my teacher certification program (one of the best and most respected in my state), was that NO ONE should be judged by tests and tests alone, but that day to day observation data, work samples, and multi-faceted projects were far more valuable.

“Now, teachers are being told by those who never went through such programs, that what they learned doesn’t matter, schools need to run like businesses, and students need to be programmed like machines (and if they cannot be, it is the teacher’s fault – NOTHING else is considered). What are we doing? What are we teaching our children? What are we preparing them for? WHAT ARE WE TESTING????”

Categories Childhood, New York, Standardized Testing

Molly Rowan Leach: Time to Liberate Our Children from the Atrocities Imposed on Them

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2014 //
7

As the great testing machine begins to take over our children’s lives, parents are waking up to the damage done to their children, bordering on child abuse.

 

Some children are traumatized by the fear and high-stakes attached to the tests. They fear failure. They fear being held back a grade. They fear that they will cause their teacher to be fired or their school to be closed.

 

What evil minds concocted this sadistic situation?

 

In this article, Molly Rowan Leach describes the toll on children imposed by the current testing regime. She calls it an atrocity against children.

 

She writes that parents and teachers are fighting back, that they are mobilizing to protect the children.

 

I invite Molly to join the Network for Public Education, which is connecting parents, educators, and concerned citizens across the nation.

 

We have called for Congressional hearings on the misuse, overuse, and abuse of testing in our schools.

 

As she writes:

 

As the days pass, mobilization against the reforms increases, both as a protective measure and as a foundation for building an education system of which we can be proud. When I am fully present with my son, and when I join forces with his teachers and with the parents of his classmates, I can see what needs to be done. It’s our collective voice that will keep the school doors open for children to develop their freedom and imagination, their playfulness and sense of joy in art, and their love for themselves and other people.

We are not just fighting for our children, but for the liberation of our country.

 

Categories Childhood, Education Industry, Real Education, Testing

Eleven Million Page Views in Less than Two Years!

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2014 //
24

Dear Friends,

Today this blog reached the unbelievable number of eleven million page views!

I had no idea this would happen when I wrote the first post on April 26, 2012.

Thank you for reading. More than that, thank you for participating.

Many of you contribute regularly to what must be the liveliest discussion about education on the Internet. I read your comments and pick out some that are the most interesting, the most thoughtful, the most informative, and the most provocative and post them. It may be the same day or weeks later. The important thing is that I have tried to make this blog a place where the voices of parents, students, teachers, principals, and superintendents are heard, unedited.

The rules of the blog are limited and simple. Be civil. Avoid certain four-letter words which I will not print. Do not insult your host. There are plenty of other forums for all of the above. Just not here.

As you know, the blog has a point of view, because I have a point of view. I care passionately about improving the education of all children. I care passionately about showing respect for the dedicated men and women who work hard every day to educate children and help them grow to be healthy, happy human beings with good character and a love of learning. I care passionately about restoring real education and rescuing it from those who have dumbed it down into preparation for the next standardized test. I care passionately about restoring to all children their right to engage in the arts, to play, to dream, to create, to have a childhood and a youth unburdened by fear of tests. I care passionately about protecting the public schools from those who seek to monetize them and use them as a source of profit and power.

I am in my end game. I will fight to the last to defend children, teachers, principals, and public education from the billionaires and politicians who have made a hobby of what is deceptively called “reform.” What is now called “reform,” as the readers of this blog know, is a calculated plan to turn public schools over to amateurs and entrepreneurs, while de imaging the teaching profession to cut costs.

The people who promote the privatization and standardization of public education are the StatusQuo. They include the U.S. Department of Education, the nation’s wealthiest hedge fund managers, and the nation’s largest foundations. They include ALEC, Democrats for Education Reform, Stand on Children, ConnCAN, and a bevy of other organizations eager to transfer public dollars to private organizations. Their stale and failed ideas are the Status Quo. Their ideas have been ascendant for a dozen years. They have failed and failed again, but their money and political power keep them insulated from news of the damage they do to Other People’s Children.

We will defeat them. We will outlast them. Who are we? We are the Resistance. We are parents and grandparents, teachers, and principals, school board members, and scholars. We will not go away. They can buy politicians, but they can’t buy us. They can buy “think tanks,” but they can’t buy us. Public schools are not for sale. Nor are our children. Nor are we.

Categories ALEC, Arts Education, Charter Schools, Childhood, Parents, Principals, Privatization, Students, Teachers, U.S. Department of Education
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