Re: As Brown Children's Test Scores Creep Up, Conservatives Wring Hands

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Is there anything else you can blame NCLB for?  The high price of 
gasoline, maybe?

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: dkeikoa@hawaii.rr.com
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Cc: Nancy Patterson <patterna@gvsu.edu>
Sent: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:05 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] As Brown Children's Test Scores Creep Up, 
Conservatives Wring Hands


The problem in my area - I presume others too because of NCLB - is that 
now we
have this "focused" effort of the bubble kids, or this year they were 
called
"tippers" for tipping point. It creates a real dissonance because now 
these
average kids, the ones who could swing AYP one way or the other, are 
made to
feel like the boneheads. Oh, you are told to find language that is not
demeaning, like - "We have found based on your pre-test that you are 
weak in
"fractions" so you will be going to a class to work on this. We are 
told not to
even use the word "pull-out"  because it has negative connotations. So 
for 40
minutes in the math block, a group is pulled out, for a "skills class", 
taught
by a "tutor" (i.e. non-licensed teacher's aide) and you have the high 
averages
(because the high highs have already been tracked into their own GT 
cluster),
and the lows left in the room. You could say, and it has been said, 
that this is
a good time for peer tutoring, which is what I do, making lemonade from 
lemons,
but I have huge problems with the whole premise, which contributes to  
a very
unhappy camper. I was asked rhetorically if I wanted to lows pulled 
instead, and
I said I just want to teach my class!

Diane
---- Nancy Patterson <patterna@gvsu.edu> wrote:
> I couldn't agree more with Quan.  I was tracked from 7th grade 
through 11th in
math.  I think it was the most humiliating learning experience I've 
ever had,
and the most damaging.  No matter what you call the class--basic math,
corrective math, directed math (i've lost track of the euphemisms), 
it's still
bonehead math for dummies.  Even if those classes had been taught by 
the best
teachers (and they weren't) the stigma of being plunked in a class like 
that is
so distracting that you flat out give up before you even begin the 
class. Why
bother.  All the bone heads are there together, the future felons, the 
future
drop outs, the discipline problems, and the occasional really smart kid 
who just
doesn't approach math the same way the textbook does.  In my 9th grade 
remedial
math class the agenda for the day amongst the bullies who all were 
plunked in
that class was to make the first year teacher cry before the end of the 
class.
They succeeded about 50 percent of the time.  This was back in those 
hallowed
days of education--the early 1960's.
> I didn't learn a thing.

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