Frankly, NCLB is a perfect example of why the feds should stay the hell out of education, and why it should be left to the state and local level.

A massive federal bureaucracy imposing a standard on schools across the country doesn't properly take into account all the unique challenges and circumstances faced by each of those schools? I'm shocked! And those schools respond poorly to the initiative, teaching to the test rather than to educate, draining resources and energy from an endeavor that's often difficult to start with? I'm shocked all over again!

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Vitus, I wrote "came up ON," not "came up WITH." That means it was the system that I experienced when growing up, not something I invented myself.

Less bourbon next time! =)

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
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For those in education (I'm a 3rd grade teacher) this is pretty much the most stupid question. Every student is different and develops at a different rate. Students that come from a higher socio-economic household are the usually predisposed to do better in terms of proficiency. They are the ones that generally come to school with a solid foundation, have been read to, been encouraged to do well in school, and often do well, scoring 'proficient' or 'advanced' on standardized tests.

However, if you happen to be born into a family that is lower socio-economically you have the cards stacked against you. You are less likely to succeed and often times have parents who are working multiple jobs and not there after school to interact with their kids, read to them, and act as positive role models. These are also the kids who often times don't complete homework because there is no support structure at home and education isn't valued - it's a vicious cycle.

Do to this imbalance, taking every student, seeing where they are, and seeing where they can go to makes so much more sense. Do I give summative assessments? Yes, but I pretty much know ahead of time which students will do well and which will not. These types of assessments, which many on the right want to tie into teacher pay, don't show the amount of growth that students have made over the course of months or years. They simply show what the student is capable of at a given time. Now, if we tracked individual student progress, you'd often see that some of the lowest 'proficient' students are the ones making the biggest gains.

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lol. Got it. I'm not reducing the bourbon intake, though, fuck off.

The thing is, the system you and I came up ON is still the system in place. Who's talking about instituting a standardized test in order to graduate? (Devos? If so, that's about as ridiculous as grizzly bears.)

On the other hand, I don't think it's nearly as difficult as you make out to come up with a standardized test for that, either. Like I said, consider the GED.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I'm actually a fan of teacher accountability and performance based pay. The system would have to be done correctly, though. If I take on 100 Algebra students a year and you take on 100 Algebra students a year, and after three years my kids consistently score 10% better on the tests than your kids do, then I'm doing a better job as a teacher. Yes, we'll both have some shitty kids with some shitty parents, but that should work itself out in the statistics. You can ever drop X number lowest performers and any kid with bad attendance. Etc.

The problem is getting administrators to adopt a sensible system. My experience with them has not been favorable. The last year I taught (only taught 2 1/2 years) I got a bad performance review, despite having the highest scores in the school. I found it interesting that my kids did better than the ones in those classes with teachers who'd been teaching for 10-20 years, including our department head whom our supervisor just LOOOOOVED, yet I was not a very good 2nd year teacher. Oh....forgot to mention, many of these other teachers let their kids use cheat sheets when they took their tests.

Why the bad review? I'm a bottom line kind of guy, and they were a "form over function" kind of administration. Had I used colored chalk, wrote neater in my lesson plan book, and kept my mouth shut about everything that was wrong with what they were trying to implement, I might have been teacher of the year.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I haven't seen proposals to asses teachers performance based on static student performance assessments, but I have seen proposals to asses teacher performance based on tracking students performance compared to prior years. Those proposals face stiff opposition due to the fact that there are still numerous factors beside teacher proficiency that influence student progress.

NCLB was proposed as a way to provide extra resources where children have the deck stacked against them. That seems reasonable, but it also doesn't appear that that was the outcome of the program.

Tee hee

Well here in California the public education system is first and foremost a government employee protection regime.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Agree. This is what used to be done in the UK. There would be a standard exam and grades distributed from A to E with a bell-shaped curve based on the results. A worth 5 points, E worth 1 point. College courses used the points system for entry, so if you wanted to get into a prestigious course at a prestigious institution then you needed more points. If you did poorly and only got a few points you had to study geography in Sunderland!

I think these days more of the grades are based on coursework though, and that means the individual schools and teachers will have more of a say on the students' final grades. Not necessarily worse, but I think the system worked well before. Maybe the old system placed too much emphasis on the final exams, but it certainly meant you had to work hard!

Great. Fell free to confuse me with Sailor Sam.

I just saw a clip of Franken's question to Devos, and I don't think it was phrased very clearly. It seems to be setting up some kind of false dichotomy between growth and proficiency.

Is growth valuable to measure as a teaching tool? Sure. Is proficiency important to measure? Obviously. Is he asking which one a school system should be judged on? Or individual teachers? Doesn't seem like he's tying it to graduation or student advancement at all.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

I think Franken was mostly grandstanding but I thought the initial question wasn't too confusing - what's your take on progress vs. proficiency?

Btw, your assessment of my initial post in this thread is accurate. I knew I was going off track but did it anyway. Basically, it seemed to me that your answer was simply "just make better tests". My point, which I didn't make very clear, was that tests alone won't advance the mission of (public) education. I 'm aware that you didn't explicitly advocate that they would.

We both agree that localizing control would most likely improve outcomes. There are massive differences between even adjacent districts so the farther up the policy is made the less useful it is 'on average' to each individual district.

I thought the initial question wasn't too confusing - what's your take on progress vs. proficiency?

I still think it's confusing. I mean, I guess the answer is, "I'm in favor of both progress and proficiency."

He didn't really specify if he meant as a tool for educators, or as a standard that funding is tied to, or what. Even if he had, the answer is probably still, "yes, both."

My point, which I didn't make very clear, was that tests alone won't advance the mission of (public) education.

I think it's pretty clear that the testing that we've imposed as a means of judging schools has failed utterly. In theory, it could have worked better, but it just hasn't. Didn't take into account local differences, and schools responded badly anyway, essentially trying to game the system rather than use the tests as a tool for real educational improvement. (That's what happens when you turn the system into a game, though.) But shifting from testing "proficiency" to measuring "growth" doesn't ultimately do anything to fix that, imo.

There are massive differences between even adjacent districts so the farther up the policy is made the less useful it is 'on average' to each individual district.

Totally agree.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

yes, which is exactly how i know it doesnt mean a damn thing to the top students. they will usually be at the top regardless of a curve.

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who's smarter than you're? i'm!

Fixed it for ya.