Re: Fear Based Education as the Testing Season Starts

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Ridiculous speculations such as yours and out-of-focus arguments such 
as Claudia's cause more harm to public education than reading and math 
tests.  Quit whining about tests.

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: MONICALUCIDO@comcast.net
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 2:32 pm
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fear Based Education as the Testing Season Starts


I find it entertaining that she calls it the "Testing Season", as if it 
were
dome sort of hunting expedition. Maybe it is for the corporate 
politicos; they
seem to enjoy hunting kids.  Everyone consider this. Is it possible 
that the 10%
cut in education funding is another set up for schools to fail 
(especially at
this critical time)? Is it possible that taking away the little 
resources we
have to help these struggling students, in a year when the NCLB AMO's 
in math
and ELA will climb by approximately 10%, is intended to put so much 
pressure on
us that parents have no choice but to leave public schools? I am sure 
that it is
only a start , as the governor's "blue ribbon" team suggests that merit 
pay be
introduced here in CA, which will create even MORE focus on testing. 
They can
cut the budget by 10%, and YET----AND YET !!!!--they still have the 
funding to
pay for the milions of dollars in standardized testing costs?! People 
are losing
their jobs. What the hell is going on here
? Why
are districts not unifying and standing up to this garbage? Good for 
Claudia for
stating truth to power. DEFIANCE is the only answer at this point.

Joe Lucido
Educators and Parents Against Test Abuse
Fresno
-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Free2teach1@aol.com
> Published on Sunday, March 16, 2008  by _the Santa  Cruz Sentinel
> (California)_ (http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_8593594)
> Fear-Based Education as the Testing Season Starts
> by Claudia Ayers
>
>
> Next September, teachers like me will face hours of meetings 
considering
> mountains of data, derived from rounds of testing that our students — 
and we
> —
> must now endure. In the fall, we will no longer have the students 
whose scores

>  we will analyze, but what else are you going to do with the data, 
besides
> publish it in the local papers and wonder why the mathematically 
challenged
> gloat with the up-ticks, and feel shamed by the downturns?
> The confused and erratic sophomores we now attempt to teach have had 
scripted
>  education since first grade, when whole language reading programs 
and “fuzzy
>  math” were rejected and all too often replaced with worksheets that 
were
> guided  by scripts that teachers simply read. Additionally, since the 
2001 No
> Child Left  Behind Act, these students have had endless practice 
rounds for
> standardized  tests. They know how to bubble in answers, but have 
limited
> ability
> to ask  questions, and seem so much less interested in understanding 
their
> world than  the students who preceded them.
> All school children and youth now carry many burdens: content 
standards,
> measurable objectives, rigor, accountability, school-wide pacing, 
subject
> breadth [mile wide, inch deep], proficiencies in bunches-of-facts, 
homework in

> the
> primary grades, skills drills and practice tests, fewer high school  
electives

> but more math support classes, heavy backpacks and exit exams. These  
are the
> fruits of fear.
> Gone are the days of true engagement and authenticity, when emerging 
goals
> included such things as integrated- and systems-learning, concept 
development

> and global citizenship. Other things being left behind: field trips, 
democracy

>  in action, age-appropriate curriculum [everything is hurried], 
project
> choices,  recess, problem solving, team building, discussion, 
teachable
moments,
> student-taught lessons, inquiry, discovery, inductive thought, art, 
music,
> teachers teaching to their strengths, freedom, or even … joy.
> No wonder kids are dropping out in record numbers. The kinds of 
things that
> lead to wisdom and ideals are steadily being eradicated, and if the 
people who

>  should know better don’t start standing up, valued public education 
will,
> simply, be irrevocably lost. Private school enrollments steadily 
increase.
> Kids were prompted to think in the “fuzzy math” days; the math skills 
were
> embedded in rich problems [not on drills and work sheets]. Whole 
language
> sought  to offer children the rewards of rich literature — public 
confusion
> about
> imaginary battles between phonics and sight-word advocates aside. 
There is a
> difference between authentic reform efforts and the so-called reforms 
that
> NCLB  has wrought [or is it rot?].
> Should every high school student really be required to take three 
years of
> college preparatory high-school courses in order to graduate [as is 
required
in
>  many local schools]? Or is this just another way to force kids with 
lower
> testing abilities to drop out so those who remain will produce higher 
Academic

> Performance Indices?
> When your school administrators and board members keep telling you 
their main
>  goal is “improving student achievement,” that is the first clue they 
have
> uncritically accepted fear-based education. The joy of learning and 
creativity

>  are not measurable.
> Granted, true graduation rates and satisfaction surveys could give 
some
> useful data. But basing “achievement” almost exclusively on 
standardized
> test
> scores is astonishingly nearsighted.
> Honestly, I have seen hundreds of standardized test questions, and 
educated
> people would be appalled by their quality. That the testing companies
> regularly  rack up errors in scoring is also a little known facet of 
the
> industry that
> is  taking hundreds of millions of dollars away from U.S. classrooms.
> The High School Exit Exam [HSEE] has just been given to all of 
California’s
> 10th-graders [March 11 and 12]. Most of our students will “pass.” The 
ones
> who  do not pass are likely to have a different first language, have 
testing
> anxiety,  or have a learning disability. Sure, they have more chances 
to pass,

> but anxiety  cranks up with each “try.” Each year there will still be
> thousands
> of great kids  in California who will not receive a diploma and will 
not walk
> at graduation.  Sadly, these are the students who will be most 
devastated by
> the missed  opportunity.
> Then in April, all students from second through 11th grades take 
another
> enormous battery of California Standards Tests [CSTs]. The dollars 
and hours
> thrown at this enterprise is insane, especially given that 20 percent 
of the
> school year remains, yet students are evaluated on how they did for 
yearlong
> course standards.
> My college-age daughters were not subject to the HSEE and I opted 
them out of
>  the CSTs. They tell me that were they still in high school they 
would not
> take  the HSEE as a form of civil disobedience, even if it meant they 
could
not
> walk  at graduation. They say they wouldn’t want to shake the hands 
of adults
> with  hardened hearts who did nothing to prevent this test from 
devastating
> the lives  of our most vulnerable students.
> While I love the idea that students would seek justice by protesting 
the
> HSEE, it is the appropriate role of adults to protect children from 
poor
policy
> decisions by standing up and unconditionally loving children, not 
only their
> own, but all children. Tax dollars are precious; they should not be 
used to
> make  profits for test companies. Nor can we afford the countless 
hours and
> dollars  devoted to prepare for and administer these pathetic tests.
> Claudia Ayers is a teacher at Aptos High School.
> C
>
>
> Judy  Rabin
>
> Given the existence of an idealized vision of the community,  
movements of
> protest are likely to occur within the political nation when the  
discrepancy
> between the image and the reality comes to seem intolerably  wide.
>
> --   J.H. Elliott
>
>
>
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