Re: who said 'no one-size-fits-all measures'?

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Scott ... It's hard to argue that giving kids tutoring or tickets to 
other schools, or giving training to teachers and principals, or 
bringing in new curriculum and new teaching methods is "punishing" 
schools but you and others on ARN keep on arguing it.  Leaving that 
aside, NCLB already requires everything you detailed below (to greater 
or lesser degree).  What it does not do is take public education by the 
hand and walk you through it.  Is that really NCLB's fault?   Maybe 
NCLB would work better if so much of public education weren't fighting 
it instead of looking for ways to make it work.  The Portland 
"Oregonian" has an article talking about schools that have "opted out" 
of NCLB - with the motive, one strongly suspects, of getting out from 
under NCLB's requirements for accountability and improvement.  The 
article said that more Oregon schools have gotten out of improvement by 
"opting out" or changing their grade span or other maneuvers than by 
raising achievement.  So much for the inevitable march towards 
privatization.  But my point is that you shouldn't kid yourself into 
thinking that there are magical properties to "accreditation" -- to the 
degree that "accreditation" could discredit poor practice and poor 
performance and the people responsible for them, public education would 
game it the same way it is gaming things now.

This having been said, I am in complete agreement with the last 
statement in your first paragraph and I trust your judgment about that 
completely.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Hays <shays@ccwebster.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 6:06 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] who said 'no one-size-fits-all measures'?

...
You are correct, Art ... tests are not improving the schools.  At best, 
they measure what the schools have accomplished (but are, in fact, 
designed to measure what individual students have accomplished).  But 
the idea of an "accreditation process" for public schools might be a 
good one!  Instead of testing and punishing, why not take all that 
money and create a system where impartial, outside observers come in 
and use a battery of measures to rate a school ... instead of a 
"pass-fail" graded system (which takes us back to the stick and carrot 
routine), however, they merely leave a report which notes areas of 
strength and weakness, perhaps some indication of areas needing 
improvement, and possibly (heaven forbid) a growing database of 
means/materials/methods used by similar schools for making improvement. 
 And lo!  The powers that be might then actually deem it possible to 
support efforts of schools to improve in the identified areas with 
funding, materials, training, partnerships with universities (or other 
providers of professional development) and other interventions of a 
positive, team-building nature ... as opposed to threatening them with 
labels, student transfer, takeover or closure.  Art ... you sometimes 
have some really good ideas!


Oh, and while I'm at it ... Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all 
on this list.  ARN disappeared from my mailbox for a few weeks (still 
don't know why ... or why it magically reappeared), but I am happy to 
have it back!


"I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box 
when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it"

                 --Terry Pratchett


Scott Hays

shays@ccwebster.netwebster.net





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