[Schools Matter] Does Testing Children Make Adults Stupid, Too?]

["James Horn" <jhorn@monmouth.edu>]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [Schools Matter] Does Testing Children Make Adults Stupid, Too?
From:    "Jim Horn" <ontogeny1@verizon.net>
Date:    Wed, August 3, 2005 1:25 pm
To:      jhorn@monmouth.edu
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Evidence is now emerging that the current testing frenzy sweeping the
nation is having a similar stupidifying effect on adults that it has on
the children who are being tested.  In Colorado, for instance, the Rocky
Mountain News reports that flattening reading scores have caused some
school officials to react in ways that would suggest a total loss of
rationality.  Here are the trends in reading (a totally predictable
leveling) that have Colorado educators wringing their hands babbling to
one another:

The percentage of Colorado fourth- through 10th-graders reading at or
above grade level increased from 2002 to 2003, but has remained fairly
flat ever since.
â?¢ 2002    58.6
â?¢ 2003    65.0
â?¢ 2004    65.1
â?¢ 2005    65.6

To boost test scores, one literacy director proposes to consciously drain
any remaining joy of learning all the way down to kindergarten:  "We need
to prepare our students at an earlier age," DeLong said. "Even at the
kindergarten level, we need to get kids to think about what they're
reading or what's being read to them."  Hmm, I wonder how that will work
for children at this developmental level--and how that will help those
stubborn scores in 4th grade.

Other signs that testing might be associated with adult literacy directors
losing their minds can be seen in the belief that namby-pamby narrative
literature might the culprit in these pancaking test scores.  Bring on
more more structure, more non-fiction, Delong says--boys like it, and boys
need to raise their scores more than girls.

The article does close, however, with evidence that there may be hope for
a restoration of sanity once the National Reading Panel propaganda (as
documented in the book reviewed here) is put in the garbage can, along
with the drill-and-kill curricula that it has inspired:
Judith Casey, the immediate past president of the Colorado Council of the
International Reading Association, theorized that the more structured
reading programs some districts implement with Reading First funds may
have contributed to the state's flat scores. "With older kids," she said,
"I wonder if that's leading to boredom and limited student investment
because they're really not given the opportunity to do thinking on their
own."

   Imagine that!

--Posted by Jim Horn to Schools Matter at 8/03/2005 12:22:00 PM
http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/