Hey Ohma!

Does today's Tribune article on how Illinois pitches underhanded on standardized testing mean we have to give back the super duper red shiny apple award? Or the Blue Ribbon award at Lincoln? Or do we have to hire more teachers now that we have to reach BEYOND Colorado to stop dumbing down tests?

I think we should come up with something like Advanced Placement classes that artificially inflate a GPA. Perhaps we can be in the 120th percentile!

Thank God we have enough administrators to figure out how to game the system.

Those are great questions, Ron. May I suggest that you go to the next board meeting and ask for a response, be told that the district doesn't respond to articles and then read the response to the article in the school weekly paper delivered to your driveway.

By the way, did anyone else with a "stakeholder" at Hadley hear about the survey that the kids completed? My Hadley student tells me that the survey sort of looked like the ISAT and asked questions like "did you ever bring a weapon to school?" I wondered about this survey but then remembered that the district at one time discussed regular surveying of its "stakeholders." (See page 26 here.) Glad to see we found a use for that levy we are maximizing.

quote:

Originally posted by ohma:
Those are great questions, Ron. May I suggest that you go to the next board meeting and ask for a response, be told that the district doesn't respond to articles and then read the response to the article in the school weekly paper delivered to your driveway.

Well, as Ted says, "compliment in public." The Clevelander by way of Florida took the "one voice" philosophy to task this week. Every organization wants to be on the same page. When government does it, it leads to stone walls. Sort of like we have here. The Pravda communications are now received via email several times a week.

Everyone is above average here in Lake GlenEllynbegone. Drink the Kool-Aid and sit down.

Was the survey yesterday? My Hadley-ite wasn't at school....there is a free program available in the state to monitor the needs of students and help schools know what the social-emotional concerns are as well as get a handle on the school environment. That's what this sounds like but I think it's worth asking about. We should talk about this Ohma.

As for dumbing down the standards, I saw that Daily Herald article. It's very interesting...I mean the ACT is the test for juniors so I don't know how that can be dumbed down but I don't know about all the other testing that our kids take. Very intersting indeeed. However, considering how badly things have been for the ISBE the past few years (and they are the ones developing the tests with places like ETS), I can't say that I am terribly suprised.

My Hadley student said that there were questions about drugs, friends, and other school related topics. I am glad I can check here because she did not mention it until I mentioned it to her- she said it was a scantron test.

Coverage from the Tribune

Coverage from the DailyHerald

the actual Fordham report includes a short take specifically on Illinois.

I will take the opportunity to offer an opinion: I will suggest that the Fordham institute has its own agenda which would ultimately dilute local control of curriculum in favor of national standards. If you trust the feds to supervise our teachers and to judge our childrens' performance, by all means do not treat the report with any skepticism at all!

re: the Hadley survey - they also had students grade their teachers, as well as some aspects of the facilities. I was especially interested to hear the grades my 7th grader assigned her teachers.

My kid took the survey today since he was gone yesterday. I kin dof think it was this climate/social-emotional/environment study that schools can participate in free of charge. Schools can usually create some of their own quesitons and it does provide good information. I could be wrong - perhaps it's the survey Ohma mentioned but I don't know....

quote:

Originally posted by sances:
Coverage from the Tribune

Coverage from the DailyHerald

the actual Fordham report includes a short take specifically on Illinois.

I will take the opportunity to offer an opinion: I will suggest that the Fordham institute has its own agenda which would ultimately dilute local control of curriculum in favor of national standards. If you trust the feds to supervise our teachers and to judge our childrens' performance, by all means do not treat the report with any skepticism at all!

re: the Hadley survey - they also had students grade their teachers, as well as some aspects of the facilities. I was especially interested to hear the grades my 7th grader assigned her teachers.

John: Like they say: "Lies, damn lies, and statistics". Instead of viewing individual achievement, we seek test scores to evaluate teaching. When this happens, who among us would not teach to the test to save our skins? The kids are going to learn, but if we asked the teachers to bag the testing and teach the kids to write and think, I believe that is what we would get. We men are tooooooo hung up on measuring.

See, teachers WANT to teach your children. They don't really want to game the system. When we bog the system down with these statistical games which any (pardon me Bob and Steve) engineer can see through, it defeats the purpose of progressive teaching methods. It's no wonder the teachers are excited about the new curriculum. It's actually meaningful teaching.

Ron

well stated, I couln't agree more.

It's not a game that requires an engineer to figure out. Teachers and parents can figure it out. For instance, Phi Delta Kappan surveys seem to indicate that the more people know about NCLB, the less they favor it.

here's a link to the latest one: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v89/k0709pol.htm

BTW, my Hadley student claims that the name of the survey group was "Harris." I don't think that is the one you are talking about, Amy.

Interesting questions. I wish I would have known that my kid was going to be asked about sexual activity and weapons.

from d41 e-news:

Parents of D41 students,
You have received, or soon will, your Harris School Survey in the mail. In order to make sure you have enough time to complete this survey, the return date has been extended to Wednesday, Oct. 31. Thank you for your time and cooperation in this matter. Your input is important.

quote:

Originally posted by ohma:
BTW, my Hadley student claims that the name of the survey group was "Harris." I don't think that is the one you are talking about, Amy.

Interesting questions. I wish I would have known that my kid was going to be asked about sexual activity and weapons.

Well, my kid didn't know why he was answering all those questions. I guess we should be thankful that most of our kids probably didn't know what to think of the questions about weapons and many didn't know about the sexual activity stuff either...Lucky us!

Maybe my beef with scantron tests, lack of reading and writing exams and term papers, and now, the district's issue with homework, is a factor in this issue?