Re: ASCD's The Results Fieldbook

["Allen Flanigan." <Allen.Flanigan@USPTO.GOV>]

Bill,

I happen to know one fellow who served for a time as editor of an ASCD's
Educational Leadership, a very knowledgeable gentleman named Ron Brandt (now
retired).  I know he does not buy into the "test scores uber alles"
mentality, and I hope that there may be others at ASCD who don't, either.
Unless you're sure they are all singing from the same hymnal regarding
testing issues, it may be premature to call for pulling the plug on ASCD.

You can check out their website at www.ascd.org <http://www.ascd.org>  to
see what kind of front they put up for the public.  Don't know how well it
coincides with the messages they send out in lobbying Congress and so forth.

Allen Flanigan

[Flanigan, Allen]  -----Original Message-----
From: Wcala@SERVTECH.COM [mailto:Wcala@SERVTECH.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 7:41 AM
To: ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU
Subject: ASCD's The Results Fieldbook



I just received The Results Book from ASCD by Mike Schmoker.  Adlai
Stevenson High School in Illinois, Milwaukee Public Schools, Oak Park in
Detroit, Glendale Union High School in Arizona and Brazosport in Houston.

All of these schools have made  "......momentous discovery. When teachers
regularly and collaboratively review assessment data for the purpose of
improving practice to reach measurable achievement goals, something magical
happens."

Shall we translate? When you look at nothing more than test scores and focus
ALL of your energy on those scores and you no longer teach but manage your
classroom to be a drill and kill test prep center, your meaningless
standardized test scores will improve.

As the schools mentioned above are all in areas of ARN participants, I am
sure there will be other sides to this picture of enlightenment.

It may be time to pull the plug on ASCD.  I'm not sure how many more of
these 'testing equals education' tomes I can stomach.

BC