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Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,752,651 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhett_Butler
Yeah, let me try to explain TODAY'S schools to you. Joe Clark would have been kicked out on his arse within a week. Remember the lady who seemed to be "out to get him" and was upset because of the kids he kicked out? There would have been an army of her type and those kids would have ALL been back in school Monday morning.
Sorry, Joe Clark and Jaime Escalante aren't allowed to do what they did in today's educational system. There is zero tolerance for "Zero tolerance" these days. This is what I'm trying to tell you. The parents blame the teachers for their kid being an a-hole, the Administrators cave to the parent because they don't want to get into any legal hot water, and the parent wins...
Too bad these dated films make people think there's more hope than there is and that it's "so simple" to turn schools around. Sorry, but "Look at Joe Clark" will incite rounds of raucous laughter from anyone familiar with education today...
In fact I'm taking a classroom management course as we speak, and one of the very FIRST things the instructor said was, "If you have any fantasies of being Michelle Pfieffer in 'Dangerous Minds', you might need to rethink this...".
Well then that is the problem we need to work on. The parents nor the students do not run the school. The Principal does. And no, if it were me, if I put you out you will stay out whether you are a student or a teacher. I will follow due process and be rid of you. Good Principals do that. The problem is that many of them just shove problem teachers and students off to some other school. Joe Clark showed us how to run things. If you do what he did, the failures may scream but many other parents will support what you are doing. Most people want the school to be safe, clean and a place where learning takes place.
I taught SAT prep classes for my public high school from 1988 to 1999. I attended a number of College Board workshops during the years before and after the first administration of the recentered test. The explanation teachers were given for the need to 'recenter' is consistent with the following excerpt from Wikipedia: As more lower income students took the SAT, the mean SAT score dropped, which required an adjustment to the scoring scale. Middle/upper class students continue to do well on the SAT.
If that were true, you wouldn't see a 100+ point score adjustment beginning at the 1490 (verbal + math) score level.
...And Wikipedia? Really?
It ignores the research findings indicated here:
"While students in the bottom quartile have shown slow but steady improvement since the 1960s, average test scores have nonetheless gone down, primarily because of the performance of those in the top quartile. This "highest cohort of achievers," Rudman writes, has shown "the greatest declines across a variety of subjects as well as across age-level groups." Analysts have also found "a substantial drop among those children in the middle range of achievement," he continues, "but less loss and some modest gains at the lower levels." In other words, our brightest youngsters, those most likely to be headed for selective colleges, have suffered the most dramatic setbacks over the past two decades...
...Those who attribute the loss of academic performance to social factors don't take account of the small number of high schools around the country that have managed to escape the downturn. Some are posh private academies; a few are located in blue-collar neighborhoods. What they have in common is a pattern of stable or even rising test scores at a time when virtually all the schools around them experienced sharp declines.
...The other key factor in preserving academic quality was the practice of grouping students by ability in as many subjects as possible The contrast was stark: schools that had "severely declining test scores" had "moved determinedly toward heterogeneous grouping" (that is, mixed students of differing ability levels in the same classes), while the "schools who have maintained good SAT scores" tended "to prefer homogeneous grouping."
The Other Crisis in American Education - 91.11 (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/educatio/singalf.htm - broken link)
We have been. That's what's been dumbing down students for nearly 50 years. Read my posts on The Other Crisis In American Education and the inflated recentered SAT scores.
Most important points to remember:
"While students in the bottom quartile have shown slow but steady improvement since the 1960s, average test scores have nonetheless gone down, primarily because of the performance of those in the top quartile. This "highest cohort of achievers," Rudman writes, has shown "the greatest declines across a variety of subjects as well as across age-level groups." Analysts have also found "a substantial drop among those children in the middle range of achievement," he continues, "but less loss andsome modest gains at the lower levels." In other words, our brightest youngsters, those most likely to be headed for selective colleges, have suffered the most dramatic setbacks over the past two decades--a fact with grave implications for our ability to compete with other nations in the future."
The Other Crisis in American Education - 91.11 (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/educatio/singalf.htm - broken link)
I agree with this 100 percent. That's why it's breathtakingly contradictory that you support anything about NCLB.
If the child does not wish to learn, they should not be there taking up space. If for some reason they CAN'T learn they should be referred out of the classroom to a special education setting where they can better be taught by more specialized teachers that know how to deal with that kind of student. A teacher should have the power to make that decision. If I were a teacher, NOBODY sits idle in my classroom and NOBODY disturbs my classroom. I have ZERO tolerance. I expect all students to be in my class on time and dressed appropriately. I expect them to be prepared and to have done the assigned readings. When I call on them, I expect them to stand and recite the answer. This is the way teachers and schools should be.
Lots of 'shoulds' in this post. Unfortunately, teachers have to deal with the way it is, not the way it SHOULD be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KevK
Well then that is the problem we need to work on. The parents nor the students do not run the school. The Principal does. And no, if it were me, if I put you out you will stay out whether you are a student or a teacher. I will follow due process and be rid of you. Good Principals do that. The problem is that many of them just shove problem teachers and students off to some other school. Joe Clark showed us how to run things. If you do what he did, the failures may scream but many other parents will support what you are doing. Most people want the school to be safe, clean and a place where learning takes place.
School boards run the schools and school board members are elected by voters, who are also PARENTS. Principals do not have the power that you think they have.
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,752,651 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
You have GOT to be joking.
Review the NCLB state testing proficiency levels vs the NAEP proficiency levels here, noting the significant discrepancies between the two: NAEP and State Equivalent Percent Table
...and look at a few NAEP sample test questions here. When you submit your answers, you get info on what percentage of students answered each question correctly: NAEP - Test Yourself
The proficiency levels on the NAEP are abysmal, yet the NAEP, the supposedly harder test given the NCES comparison chart linked above, is ridiculously easy.
By the time a student graduates high school, they ought to at LEAST be able to do basic life functions. Things such as:
Read and comprehend a newspaper and a credit card statement
Use an encyclopedia, dictionary and atlas
Know which way is west, east, north, south
Be able to add, subtract, multiply, divide by hand
Read and understand the US Constitution and know the 3 branches of the Federal Government
Be able to point out their own state and California, Florida, Texas and New York on a map
Write a 1 page essay that uses correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Does not have to be "perfect" but readable and understandable.
Operate an automobile and understand road signs
Fill out a job application
Review the NCLB state testing proficiency levels vs the NAEP proficiency levels here, noting the significant discrepancies between the two: NAEP and State Equivalent Percent Table
...and look at a few NAEP sample test questions here. When you submit your answers, you get info on what percentage of students answered each question correctly: NAEP - Test Yourself
The proficiency levels on the NAEP are abysmal, yet the NAEP, the supposedly harder test given the NCES comparison chart linked above, is ridiculously easy.
The following is a link to the California standard for Math. If I look at the fourth grade standard; I'm pretty sure that there are concepts there that I was not taught until Jr. High/Middle School. I don't have the equivalent document from the 60's. Can you point me to the the 4th grade standard the NAEP uses?
http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/mathstandard.pdf (broken link)
NCLB came about because kids were graduating high school and they could not read.....you want to go back to that......where are you from Mississippi(the worst education in the country)????
Actually, Mississippi does not have the "worst education" in the country - District of Columbia does
Best School Systems in the Country:
1. Maryland
2. Massachusetts
3. New York
4. Virginia
5. New Jersey
6. Ohio
7. Pennsylvania
8. Georgia
9. West Virginia
10. Arkansas
Worst School Systems in the Country:
1. District of Columbia
2. Nevada
3. Idaho
4. Mississippi
5. Nebraska
6. Missouri
7. Arizona
8. Oregon
9. Montana
10. South Dakota
I agree with you about NCLB, in this respect. A student either knows his math, and knows how to read, or he doesn't. If teachers were really teaching, most children would do quite well on these standardized tests. They are not rocket scientist tests.
The problem began when teachers spent more time teaching to test, not teaching to learn. If you do the latter, testing becomes second nature
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