Andy’s whereIstand Blog

Standardized Tests never work. In fact, I’m suspect of anything trying to estimate the efficacy of teaching. Education is such a long and subjective experience to be comprehensive. The problem is that our public education administrators are so concerned with results represented by figures that it seems that many students are successful in life despite of their public education rather than because of. I did better in college than I ever did in high school. I also achieved in college what I consider to be the real goal of education - learning how to learn. Realizing that knowledge is constructed and that anything I wanted to learn, I now know how to on my own.

That said. The Repercussions of Bush Corp’s No Child Left Behind Act, which is nothing if not the attempt to quantify education results, are finally being felt. From the NYT article "Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math:"

Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush’s signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it.

Schools from Vermont to California are increasing — in some cases tripling — the class time that low-proficiency students spend on reading and math, mainly because the federal law, signed in 2002, requires annual exams only in those subjects and punishes schools that fall short of rising benchmarks.

The changes appear to principally affect schools and students who test below grade level.

The intense focus on the two basic skills is a sea change in American instructional practice, with many schools that once offered rich curriculums now systematically trimming courses like social studies, science and art. A nationwide survey by a nonpartisan group that is to be made public on March 28 indicates that the practice, known as narrowing the curriculum, has become standard procedure in many communities.

I think those Montessori people are on to something, because while reading and math are important, they should not come at the expense of everything else.

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Should states be forced to fund the federally mandated No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act?

I think the Tenth Amendment might come in here, but either way, I don’t think the courts are the place to fight his unless of course the federal government tries to enforce it, then it might be unconstitutional. I was under the impression that education is under the purview of the states alone. I believe in a strong federal government as well, but when it comes to something like education, I must take exception. Being fresh out of the academic meat-grinding factory, I tend to see all educational endeavors as works-in-progress if not outright experiments. I think this is the way it should be, because it opens the field for different methods of doing something that, as it stands, is an awkward and dangerous process. School is a massive force in the formation of relationships with self and the production of knowledge. It took me sixteen years of school for me to learn how to learn! I think having a state-level difference ensures we have about fifty different processes going on that we can compare and that will compare with each other. Standardized testing is not the way. It really test nothing but the taking of the test itself and the wrote memorization of facts and even wrote memorization of processes. Sorry to go Po-Mo, but education is a Post-Modern enterprise anyway. The Modernists failed in so many ways - Piaget was a twerp. Now is all this legal? I don’t know, but education (and the justification for the existence of the Senate) might be one of the few States Rights causes I would take up. Now, ask me about the Electoral College…

This has been Andy D.

whereIstand Tags

• Should states be forced to fund the federally mandated No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act?

I think the Tenth Amendment might come in here, but either way, I don’t think the courts are the place to fight his unless of course the federal government tries to enforce it, then it might be unconstitutional. I was under the impression that education is under the purview of the states alone. I believe in a strong federal government as well, but when it comes to something like education, I must take exception. Being fresh out of the academic meat-grinding factory, I tend to see all educational endeavors as works-in-progress if not outright experiments. I think this is the way it should be, because it opens the field for different methods of doing something that, as it stands, is an awkward and dangerous process. School is a massive force in the formation of relationships with self and the production of knowledge. It took me sixteen years of school for me to learn how to learn! I think having a state-level difference ensures we have about fifty different processes going on that we can compare and that will compare with each other. Standardized testing is not the way. It really test nothing but the taking of the test itself and the wrote memorization of facts and even wrote memorization of processes. Sorry to go Po-Mo, but education is a Post-Modern enterprise anyway. The Modernists failed in so many ways - Piaget was a twerp. Now is all this legal? I don’t know, but education (and the justification for the existence of the Senate) might be one of the few States Rights causes I would take up. Now, ask me about the Electoral College…

This has been Andy D.