Re: Bracey: The Degeneration of American Education

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

Dearly Beloved Art,

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-----Original Message-----
From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org on behalf of aburke5054@aol.com
Sent: Sat 3/29/2008 11:10 AM
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Bracey: The Degeneration of American Education
 
Anecdotes beloved by anti-testing propagandists such as populate this 
list aside, kids themselves don't say that tests stress them overmuch.

You can't seriously be arguing that vigilance over children's civil 
rights should be relaxed because advancing them causes some adults 
stress.  Would you accept that argument if it were offered as a reason 
not to enforce your civil rights?

No doubt some teachers and principals are stressed. If your child 
attended a school where very many children were being taught below 
grade-level and a reform came along to raise the level of teaching, 
would you want the school to immediately bag the reform because 
somebody said it was stressful, or would you want the school to look 
for ways of channeling the stress into constructive action?  Lots of 
teachers and principals have taken the high road of constructive action 
and they are the ones you should be learning from.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Watters, Elizabeth <Elizabeth.Watters@tri-c.edu>
To: arn-l@interversity.org; arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 7:41 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Bracey: The Degeneration of American Education


and NOT giving any weight to the stress these test scores put on 
principals and
teachers (not to mention students) is also demonstrating a lack of 
perception
and common sense.

________________________________

From: arn-l-owner@interversity.org on behalf of aburke5054@aol.com
Sent: Fri 3/28/2008 10:39 AM
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Bracey: The Degeneration of American Education



It's true that public education employs people who, as Bracey says,
seem to have lost all proportion and common sense.  This would be true
with testing or without it and attributing every silly thing that goes
on in public education to testing itself demonstrates lack of
perception and common sense.

Art


-----Original Message-----
From: monty@fairtest.org
To: arn2-strategy <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>; ARN-L
<arn-l@interversity.org>; ARN-state <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>; CARE
<care@yahoogroups.com>; NDSG <ndsgroup@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 6:19 am
Subject: [arn-l] Bracey: The Degeneration of American Education


"Good" examples of test mania in action - I snagged this from Susan
Ohanian's posting of news, including henr comment:


The Degeneration of American Education


If readers have other examples of absurdities, Gerald Bracey would love
to hear about them. You can write to the blog or to him directly at
gbracey1@verizon.net


Don't forget to send a copy to:

Susano@gmavt.net


by Gerald Bracey


The high-stakes testing mania in general and No Child Left Behind in
particular have reduced too much of public education to a system to be
gamed. Some people play the game sincerely and seriously. The teachers
and principal in Linda Perlstein's Tested are such players. They have
doubts about the value of the state test, but they strive mightily to
get their impoverished students over that barrier. After the test is
given in late spring, they start acting like real teachers in a real
school--they take the kids to museums and aquariums and to watch the
Blue Angels perform. They make art and write poetry. But only in the
short time between the state test and the end of the school year.


Some people play it cynically, doing whatever it takes to get children
close to the passing score--the bubble kids--off the bubble and into
the magic kingdom of "proficient." The "sure things" and "hopeless
cases" are ignored. Or emphasizing the increasing passing rates on a
required test as students enter their senior year, not taking into
account the massive dropouts that have occurred along the way. Or
establishing "leaver codes" in sufficient number that a school can have
over 1000 9th-graders, fewer than 300 12th-graders and zero dropouts.


Some play it as if they have lost all sense of proportion and common
sense. The Texas Education Agency refused to grant a waiver from the
state test for a young woman hospitalized after a serious automobile
accident that killed her brother and left her memory impaired. Her
school dispatched an assistant principal to administer the test in the
hospital. Fortunately, one of the girl's teachers overheard what was
up, got to the hospital first and told her to refuse to take it. In
Colorado, a father, a teacher himself, sought to opt his daughter out
of the state fifth grade test. Fine, said the superintendent, but she
won't be promoted to sixth grade.


In Washington, a willing testee who simply couldn't think of how to
respond to a writing prompt was harangued by his teacher, then by his
principal and then by his mother. Unable to respond, he was forbidden
to attend a post-test party at which pancakes were served and the movie
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events shown. He was told he
had ruined everything for everyone else at the school and suspended for
a week.


And some play it desperately. On March, 27, 2008, the Houston Chronicle
reported that a middle school principal told a group of teachers that
he would kill them and kill himself if the school's science scores did
not improve. He was not, the teachers said, joking. "You don't know how
ruthless I can be," he is alleged to have said. The incident is being
investigated as a "terroristic threat."


At this point we should be asking HAVE WE GONE COLLECTIVELY MAD?


"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities," said Voltaire. In a world that contains Clear Skies, Clean
Waters, Healthy Forests, an Axis of Evil, Iraqi Freedom, Family Values,
Patriot Act, and No Child Left Behind, it is a good reminder for our
time.


- Gerald Bracey

Huffington Post

2008-03-27

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey/the-degeneration-of-ameri_b_93742.html


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