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Interversity Quotes"I think it's time to ask the Standardistos: Where's the test for compassion? For honesty? For curiosity? For moral commitment? Until they can answer, let's tell them to shut up." —Susan Ohanian (One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards) Interversity ProjectsEchoes of Orwell:The purpose of this webforum is to promote a lively discussion among students and faculty alike about George Orwell's 1984 and the parallels or echoes found in today's society. |
[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index] Idaho Too
I thought that folks might be interested in the attachment from the Lewiston (Idaho) Morning Tribune. I live just across the river in Washington, so we get mostly Idaho news. I don't know where these business people in Idaho have been - heads in the sand or just plain unenlightened (or could be stupid)! http://www.lmtribune.com/02042001/northwes/526174.htm _______________________________________________________ Send a cool gift with your E-Card http://www.bluemountain.com/giftcenter/ [Image] Tribune Homepage [PHOTO] Go to Northwest menu Tribune Photo Illustration /Steve Hanks Staring in 2006, Idaho High School students will have Subscriber access: to make the grade in standardized testing. [Image] Archives Free access: ------------------------------------------------------- [Image] Classifieds [Image] Community Q: Are graduation standards and the testing that accompanies them ...? Links [Image] Photo Gallery Kathy Hedberg [Image] Stories of * Yet another requirement burdening Idaho's students the Century * Another tool to ensure well-educated and The Tribune: well-prepared students [Image] Advisory Council * A panacea onto which the public has latched to cure a [Image] Contact Us problem that doesn't exist [Image] Subscribe * Yet another program schools are forced to fund, or... . . . . . . . . . . . All of the above . One wants to be a neurosurgeon when he grows up. Another intends to study math or engineering. Comments regarding Lewiston Tribune A third isn't sure what her goals are after college, Online can be sent via but she knows it will take lots of work to get there. e-mail to Barb Marsh. These three eighth-graders at Lewiston's Jenifer . . . . . . . . . . . Junior High School, Nick Hardin, Lance Peterson and Alisa Busch, all 14, will be among the first class of Idaho students required to meet the state's new Lewiston Morning graduation standards in 2006. Tribune P.O. Box 957 What that means is, for the first time all Idaho Lewiston, ID 83501 students will be required to demonstrate a certain Phone: (208) 743-9411 proficiency in language arts, reading, math, science Fax: (208) 746-7341 and social studies before receiving their diplomas. "It means we're getting pushed," Peterson says. "It's hard already to work everything in." These three say graduation standards may be positive in some ways, but it could cause problems for students who are struggling to meet academic requirements. "If they're having troubles," Hardin says, "and if the standards are raised it could make some of them drop out. "But if they lowered (the standards) then school's not a challenge. Then it's a free ride through high school." Busch says if graduation standards mean crowding her already busy days of school, homework and outside activities, that could be a problem. "I would do it, but that gets kind of long and you get bogged down. Even now people have trouble, and it's not that hard." How the state will implement the new standards has not yet been decided, although they will take effect this fall. The Idaho Board of Education is in the process of hiring an assessment director who will help steer school districts as they align their curriculums to meet the graduation standards. At some point students will be tested, possibly early in high school and then again in the 11th grade. Students who are not making the grade by their junior year will get some remedial instruction, most likely in summer school between their junior and senior years. Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Marilyn Howard says making sure students don't fall through the cracks will be one of the chief concerns. "One of the difficult parts of this whole thing is the issue of student motivation," Howard says. "The idea would be that students will respond when more is expected, and there's a fine balance there ... and perhaps there's a kind of fear of failure that could spiral someone down." Another concern is graduation standards will add yet another layer of state-mandated testing. "A testing agenda requires resources," says Bonnie Votaw, curriculum director for the Lewiston School District, including time, personnel and money. "Teachers do not like testing. It takes too much time away from classroom work," she adds. "Measuring the kids is good because it tells us what they know and what we need to teach them. ... We don't need to test them every day in every way." Washington doesn't have graduation standards in place, but they are set to begin with the class of 2008. What Washington requires now is the Washington Assessment of Student Learning, a comprehensive program of testing in grades four, seven and 10. In addition, both Idaho and Washington participate in the national Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency, which are voluntary. Idaho also has writing and math assessments for students in fourth and eighth grades. Idaho Gov. Dirk Kempthorne is proposing extending those assessments to the in-between grades. Last year a state reading initiative started for Idaho students in kindergarten through third grade. Students who fail to meet grade level expectations are offered 40 hours of extra instruction through tutoring or summer school. Both states have participated in the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, which sample students' learning in reading, writing, math and science. President George W. Bush has proposed making those tests mandatory, making them the first nationally mandated standards-based tests for schools. Bush's plan is to use the scores to determine school accountability and base some federal funding on the results. lll What's behind this push for more testing? According to a study published in December by Gerald Bracey of the Center for Education Research, Analysis and Innovation at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, this "sudden madness" of testing began in the 1970s and early 1980s when some 35 states adopted minimum competency tests to assure high school diplomas weren't based on social promotion, seat time or both. Large percentages of students failed these early go-rounds, which led to the publication in 1983 of "A Nation at Risk." "Its highly selective and negatively spun statistics were used as a clarion call to overhaul the schools," Bracey writes. "The anxiety people might feel about their schools was heightened by the fact that ... good news about schools served no one's political education reform agenda." The Reagan and Bush administrations were pushing privatization, vouchers and tuition tax credits and ignored positive data about students' achievement, Bracey maintains. [Image] "A large analysis of the U.S. public school system by Sandia National Laboratory engineers was suppressed for being too positive," Bracey says. "It was finally published after the Clinton administration arrived, but was seen by few people." The consequence is most Americans are willing to believe the worst about their public schools, according to Bracey. The public has a perception the people running the schools can't be trusted to provide accurate information on what students are learning. This sentiment has led to a call for something more objective in measuring student learning, he says. In most instances that has turned out to be tests. "All of this is coming together because we are so data-driven," says Sally Tiel, coordinator of counseling and assessment for the Idaho Department of Education. "Business, in particular, is driving some of this testing," she adds, "so we're making decisions and we're looking at changes that should be made based on data and the research that goes behind it." It is widely known businesses, especially high-tech and engineering, are looking outside this country to fill their needs for workers. "At one time ... our jobs were pretty much open to people with high school diplomas," says Howard. "And now the workforce demands are different ... we need almost all workers to have a specialized skill. "There's a real call right now for people who have degrees in areas of math, science and technology, so there's an employment shift." In addition, Howard says, educators want to know what motivates students and how to make sure they are learning. Tests are tools to make curriculum decisions that will help them achieve their goals. "We need to have better prepared students because we have higher demands for them, and from the inside we're saying, 'Let's be sure at each point the students are learning what they need to know.' " Local business leaders acknowledge a growing need for an educated workforce. But business is not, they say, the impetus behind more school testing. "The standardized tests have nothing to do with business reality," says Frank Carroll, spokesman for Potlatch Corp. at Lewiston. "We are interested in students who come out of high school and ... out of college who can read and reason and do math and are especially trained in areas that are important with us." Unfortunately, Carroll says, public schools and colleges don't seem to be aiming their students toward meeting business requirements. Although Potlatch has no trouble finding workers because of the company's broad-based employment search and high salaries, school programs do not seem to be on the same track. "We think this is quite amusing. If there's a researcher out there that says the needs of business is driving education, to us, that's false on its face. "From a technical standpoint our kids don't even come close to coming out of school with the expertise of the Germans or the Japanese or the intellectual accomplishment of ... the British school system. "So if business was driving American education we would have standardized testing that tested for things that are directly important to business and you'd have a very focused, intensive education. As it is, it's all over the map." Susan Fagan, spokeswoman for Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories in Pullman, says the company is concerned about the end result of the American educational system and getting the workers it needs for the future. Recently Fagan and the company's owner, Ed Schweitzer, visited with their congressional delegation about granting more work visas to import workers from other countries. "There is a lack of qualified candidates," Fagan says. "We do need more scientists. ... We think our schools are doing a pretty good job, but when you look at the amount of scientists and mathematicians that other countries are producing we're not producing the ... numbers that some other industrialized nations are." Schweitzer also is taking a ground-level approach by supporting the local school system and offering training classes for high school students to help gear them toward technical fields. "If you can get them excited at the grade school level," says Fagan, "by the time they reach college maybe this is something they want to do. "It's Ed and Mary (Schweitzer's) hope that these kids get exposed to this other science and if any of them go into fields related to it that would be wonderful. Another engineer in the world is a very, very good thing." lll Thomas Bitterwolf, a chemistry professor at the University of Idaho, served on the Idaho Board of Education commission that developed the graduation standards. The goal is to reorganize the state's school system, starting from the earliest grades, he says, so when students reach high school they already will be prepared for the graduation standards tests. "What we knew from the beginning," Bitterwolf says, "is that before testing can be used as a graduation requirement, we have to have kids from approximately the eighth grade under the new curriculum, so they are fairly exposed to the new material." Tests are only a tool. If Americans believe there isn't a need to reorganize the educational system, Bitterwolf says, they are kidding themselves. "I think one of the problems we have in the U.S. in general is that we have been willing to accept a second-class educational system while the world is operating with a first-class educational system. "The higher the educational level of your population, the higher your gross income. The numbers are out there. "If you want your state and your nation to be prosperous, the way to do it is to educate your population to the highest standards you can get. "We've got a lot of good things going for us, but in terms of what happens in education we are not up to the level of a world-class society." Translating that message to the public can be "fighting words," Bitterwolf acknowledges. And helping students see the link between more testing and their futures could be the biggest challenge teachers face. [Image] This electronic edition of the Lewiston Morning Tribune is protected by copyright. © 2001 Tribune Publishing Co. Inc.
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