Re: Is "Grade Level" A Load of Hooey?

["Nancy Patterson" <patterna@gvsu.edu>]

Jerry, I'd be interested in know how many of those black students came from lower economic areas.  

I think Jean Anyon's research is very interesting.  She looked at the kinds of school tasks students who went to schools that served lower income students.  She found that those students, even though they used the same textbooks as students who went to schools in more affluent neighborhoods, did very different tasks.  Kids who went to schools that served higher economic areas did a lot more problem solving, engaged in many more projects that challenged them to think, etc.  Students from lower income areas did lots of workbook pages and drill and kill types of activities.  

I know that when I expressed my alarm about formulaic approaches to writing, a local curriculum director told me "urban kids are different.  They need more structure."  Structure in this case meant lots of drill and kill and lots of reductive approaches to writing and reading.  

Nancy 

Nancy Patterson, PhD
Associate Professor
Literacy Studies Program Chair
College of Education
Grand Valley State University 



>>> <QCao009@aol.com> 4/7/2009 7:57 PM >>>

In a message dated 4/7/2009 3:20:52 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
gbracey@q.com writes:

Still,
the average black 12th grader scored 267 in 2005 compared to  293 for whites.
That's about a 2 1/2 year difference as NAEP goes and  slightly below the
271 of white 8th graders.  It's hard to think of  that as "slightly better"
for whites.  



Jerry, very thorough analysis.  I can't help thinking of "age  appropriate" 
and " least restrictive environment" as I read the definitions you  cited.
 
Didn't they say white men can't jump?  And then, Chris Rock comes out  and 
puts together the well concocted myth of a superior race by saying  that we 
accomplish on the plantations what Hitler could never do with the Aryan  race and 
now all our African American sport stars are a result of this  "breeding".  It 
always sounds so much more authentic when a representative  of the race comes 
up with another Forrest Gump conspiracy  theory.  Some time, life just 
follows art, and fact is a direct descendant  of imagination.
 
Quan
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