Always searching for inspiration…

Well it’s true. The semester is quickly coming to an end. In a short amount of time we are given so much information. But I think that most of this knowledge I’ve newly acquired is beneficial and useful to my understanding of how to construct a writing classroom. To be honest, the writing class was a tad fuzzier than when I took the reading portion but I still feel like I’ve learned a lot in terms of ways I can help students further their education. By doing so, they will hopefully go onto college careers like many of us have.

Like the last section with Professor Rozema, I really liked using the blogs because it offers an open-ended way for students to research a topic which is important to them. Using my Edublog allowed me to further research a subject which is constantly on my mind personally and often, I found several articles that re-stated many of the same thoughts I was having. Again, I feel the ideas that make up No Child Left Behind are suggested with the best intentions but unfortunately, are getting mistranslated amongst those who don’t know much about the classroom setting. Due to this, students are losing out on a well-developed education because while they spend most of the year preparing for a test with a specific agenda, the opportunity to learn to become a better writer gets moved to the wayside by teachers and students. Not only are we punishing schools for not performing well on one annual test but in a way, we’re metaphorically punishing them as well. I guess the question I keep coming back to is it worth it?

I also still feel that as a result of this legislature, students are being drilled in English as opposed to learning to think more in-depth for themselves. A way of providing this skill is to let them write on various subjects. No one is saying that it always has to be formal or informal, rather allowing students the opportunity to enjoy writing.

There are many aspects of this class I enjoy. I feel that it has opened my mind to different ways of thinking about how to teach students while offering inventive ideas toward doing so. It has helped motivate my thinking about ways I would teach my own writing class so that one day I can help students love to write and read as much as I do.

My comment on Jamie’s blog.

My comment on Tyler’s blog.

My comment on Walter’s blog.

My comment on Kayda’s blog.

My comment on Ashley W.’s blog.

My comment on Jenny’s blog.

My comment on Sheryl’s blog.

My comment on Carrie’s blog.

My comment on Sarah’s blog.

My comment on Christie’s blog.

To those who read, enjoy!

In a recent article I found in Education Week using my Google Reader account, the author questions the approach to re-authorization of the No Child Left Behind act. He references medicine and how anyone diagnosing another individual would first consider any possible problems that may arise from a decision to be made when trying to help a patient. Also, this policy should be used with students because even though the goal is to make sure students are gaining this universal idea of “proficiency” by 2014, any changes which are made should be based on evidence that this will not deter any student’s education.

Unfortunately, school reformers and legislators have no equivalent obligation to weigh harm when fashioning school-based interventions. The result is a general failure to perform due diligence in advancing school improvement initiatives, leaving the schools with reform projects that carry unexamined potential to produce harm. The sad reality is that when it comes to school reform, the cure can be, and sometimes is, more harmful than the ailment it addresses.

In light of the upcoming reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the time is right for legislators to find their critical sensibilities and to, at a minimum, make no new authorizations without first deliberating over whether their initiatives might do harm to schoolchildren.

This article goes on to discuss how by the time interventions for any issue in a given school are addressed, typically the proposed solution creates more harm for students than the original problem. But as legislatures continue to examining how to reform NCLB, they should consider in what ways this is doing harm in the classroom as opposed to the statistical scores of tests. The reason for this is because tests only measure performance to a degree before one thinks of each individual student may be testing. Perhaps, a student is not a decent test-taker, did not get much sleep the night before or didn’t eat a healthy breakfast before class. In other words, the government is relying on a test in which students may still not be prepared for regardless of teacher efforts geared toward instructing how to take the test.

But in fact, teachers who are good at engaging students do not base their curriculums around high-stakes tests and there is no way to measure whether this is truly being done correctly or not. There are many aspects that go into teaching a classroom full of students, not just relaying a set amount of information. Teachers must have an understanding of their students and discovers different ways of learning which is best for any particular classroom because not all are the same. Therefore, these same students should not all have to take the same test.

Teaching, we should remember, always inherits a local condition. It occurs in a particular dynamic that may or may not be in alignment with what the averages tell us. Operational answers to good teaching cannot be found in research studies that identify practices or methodologies believed to be portable to all classrooms. The answers are in the emergent judgments of the teacher, who is naturally obligated to follow some instructional plan, but who also understands that the “right” decision in a classroom depends on weighing particularistic factors related to the nature of the child, to available resources, to the defined purposes in the curriculum, to available evaluative evidence, to the subject matter at hand, and to a raft of other variables residing in the educational situation.

Such skills sets as critical thinking, creativity, cooperative behavior, and many others get short shrift in the classroom, primarily because such matters typically have little or no place on the exams.

In the meantime, students are losing the opportunity to become creative, critical thinkers in which they can also learn to cooperate with others. Rather than teaching to certain specific subjects a teacher, specifically an English teacher can use writing as a means of this because doing so opens up possibilities for all of these aspects. Similar to one of my previous posts which the article discussed writing as a way of testing because students can truly express their viewpoints in meaningful ways. For the most part, I think most would agree that in long-term education this is far more beneficial for our students.

First, Do No Harm

Peter Hlebowitsch

Education Week, November 6, 2007

Complete Article

For those of us who have been reading articles about No Child Left Behind have found that if anything this legislature has provided an outlet for satiric title changes and I will admit several of them I enjoy. But often, critics focus on where the problems exist for those who are already in the field teaching and not many focus on the tasks that are in the future for those who plan to become teachers. I realized this as I discovered an article with Lancaster Online using my Google Reader account. The truth for many becoming instructors is that expectations are more in-depth because so many schools are told to perform to a certain “proficiency.”

PENNSYLVANIA - The state has revised what new teachers will need to learn and do before leading their first classrooms.

But some local educators worry the changes to teacher certifications could hurt recruiting efforts, students and cost taxpayers more.

The goal of the revisions is to demand specialized training (think pediatrician versus general practitioner) for the modern classroom.

The world of education is one of high-stakes testing in which teachers and schools are held accountable for the performance of all students, from all backgrounds.

This article discusses how students need to be focused in their learning and understanding. This can only happen if schools are hiring teachers who are just as focused. Although I think this is important the first years of teaching requires educators to be in their own learning experience figuring the classroom environment and so on. Regardless, future employment will still focus on these expectations and as a result college requirements for students of education will increase.

“We need more focused education and that requires more focused teachers,” said Michael Race, spokesman for the state Department of Education.

The irony is that the same rigid education being put onto secondary students is now spilling over into the university level. But still, no one has actually definitively decided whether or not NCLB is beneficial and therefore future teachers are being taught these styles of instructing as opposed to ways of teaching students writing and reading with meaningful experience and understanding. I personally understand the fear from schools that students who plan to become teachers are not taking this seriously but I don’t think this is true. Similar to what the article says, requiring college students to do even more will probably deter them from continuing on this path eventually turning away some potentially amazing teachers. Just as my feelings about English education in the secondary level, I think that requirements do not need to be so rigid because the goal is to produce teachers who want to help their students learn to write. But changes such as these I think will decrease this motivation negating the original idea behind hiring new, excited teachers.

Tougher road for future teachers

Robyn Meadows, November 17, 2007

Lancaster New Era

Complete Article

As No Child Left Behind continues to influence how schools, teachers and administrators operate on an annual basis more critics are starting to take closer looks at the overall effects of this legislature. It is a common belief that NCLB affects the learning process because rather than absorbing the information being taught, students are required to pay attention to test-taking strategies. Although this is true in many ways, this act has influenced several aspects regarding school politics. Students from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds are also affected by the way this act changes the learning dynamic. As a result, the author speaks against this legislature including how student ability in retaining skills such as writing and reading is steadily declining because reform is still needed.

The report from the Department of Education (DOE) states that NCLB is fulfilling its promises because “all 50 states and D.C. assess students in grades 3-8 and once in high school in reading / language arts and mathematics; the percentage of classes taught by a highly qualified teacher has risen to over 90 percent; nearly 450,000 eligible students have received free supplemental educational services (tutoring) or public school choice.”  This tells us very little about actual student achievement.  DOE says student reading and math scores are improving but not that every child in America can read and write at grade level yet.

The author of this entry discusses how the government cannot put a “one-size-fits-all” solution to improvements in education. It’s so difficult to believe that perhaps schools from various districts all around the country might actually have different groups of students attending and therefore maybe different when referring to learning styles. In addition, legislatures which provide solutions to these schools on a national basis prevent local administrators from having the opportunity to individually construct these answers. If students are having difficulty in language arts or reading, district authorities can figure where the problems are occurring and therefore find ways to fix this ongoing problem. This way less time would be spent toward teaching to a test and students would be able to focus on meta-cognitive learning which if allowed to be expressed through writing would show the development of these skills.

State test scores may be improving but what has happened is that schools are teaching to the test and have lowered the standards for “proficiency” because so much of their funding relies upon good scores.  Whether that means students are learning skills they will retain and use for life is a different matter altogether.

Also, the government claims that language arts are improving because some grade levels have had marginal changes. But in reality, there are more grade levels which are steadily declining and several cannot actually gage whether these students have learned meaningful ways to write. It’s unfortunate that much of a student’s time in each grade level is spent with the main goal of learning to perform for high-stakes tests because when an individual reaches a certain grade they’re not at the actual writing proficiency they should be. In addition, the performances of socioeconomic students and minorities have supposedly risen as well. Why has it changed? As a way of dealing with criticism on these effects the government has eliminated various testing for these students as a way of compromising. The author of this questions of overall validity of our government’s claims and argues that reform still needs to continue as a way of challenging some of these issues. I agree with this author because it seems that Congress’s solution to our educational system is to create a policy in which every school around the country is required to test the same way. But every school is different and therefore districts should be allowed to make these changes. If this happens, teachers can instruct language arts in a way that allows student expression and meaningful writing as opposed to multiple-choice evaluation given once a year.

“No Child Left Behind” Should Be Left Behind

Paul Weyrich

November 17, 2007

Complete Blog Entry

In a recent article I found with CNN.com, as one of the only states searching for an individual solution to No Child Left Behind Nebraska has created a new legislature which tests student performance based on writing. With all of the controversy surrounding the NCLB legislature, many districts are exhausted waiting for revisions from the government. This article mentions how for most schools NCLB is high-stakes itself considering the threat of losing funds. But this particular state is not as concerned with the effects of this act.

Eschewing the Washington-created remedy, they have developed a homemade model called the School-based Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System (STARS) that has yielded impressive results, been praised by education scholars and attracted interest from Edward Kennedy, NCLB’s Senate custodian. “We just told the Department of Education that if they were really trying to [serve] all kids and close the proficiency gap that high-stakes testing isn’t the way to do it,” says Doug Christensen, state commissioner of education. “We told them we would show them that we had a better way.”

As the author continues she describes how the state commissioner of education offered this improved way of testing the students because high-stakes multiple choice tests are not the way to go. Rather than testing students so rigidly, instructors are given the opportunity to instruct lessons that they want while school districts have the task of creating the annual test. In this district when students are being tested, it is based on students expressing their thoughts, ideas and knowledge through writing essays to display what they’ve learned. Though there have been skeptics of this form of testing who feel that it will show how multiple choice testing is more accurate, writing scores have shown that these scores “line up” with the traditional ways of testing. In addition to students writing for these high-stakes tests, Nebraska also allows them to create presentations and projects as a way of demonstrating what they’ve learned. As a result, Nebraska is one of the highest testing states in the country next to Mississippi with marginal below average performance from some special education learners and second language learners.

And unlike the vast majority of states, which rely solely on multiple choice exams to measure student achievement and determine yearly progress, Nebraska’s students also write essays as part of a unique statewide writing exam. Districts can also include student oral presentations, demonstrations and projects in their battery of assessments. Christensen says the writing requirement gives state officials confidence that the multiple choice test scores are a true reflection of actual learning. Since the system was installed eight years ago, he says, the statewide writing scores on average have lined up “almost perfectly” with results on both math and reading proficiency tests. “Ours is a bottom-up model,” Christensen says.

Other than this, Nebraska’s program has been successful because students are meeting the required standards, proficiency and testing high among all subjects including math, reading and writing. Though this article clearly had a biased opinion against No Child Left Behind, I tend to agree with most of its statements. These are solutions which only instructors can understand and the government cannot. I know it must be absurd to think the government would understand why testing with writing is a wonderful solution. Writing helping test scores? Go figure…when students prepare for a multiple choice test they tend to memorize but most of us know that memorization does not necessarily equal knowledge and understanding. If students are allowed to construct their own thinking through writing even if they feel they have nothing to say, as they begin to write the understanding will be present showing that they have learned the given material.

“What we’ve got that no one else has is a cadre of teachers in the state who are as assessment literate as any educators on the face of the earth,” Christensen says. “They know how to teach to an outcome, to measure the outcome with high technical quality, and they know how to use that information to improve instruction.”

For the most part I feel this article is inspiring because I think that the federal government could take their own lesson from this state. There are many states which are doing well in education related issues but often they are not completely doing what NCLB requires. Giving students the ability to thought process what they’ve learned is the best way to ensure their education and their future. This state is doing so by letting the students write and therefore writing can help improve test scores.

How Nebraska Leaves No Child Left Behind

By Sonja Steptoe, October 8, 2007

CNN.com

Complete Article

Recently I attended the James Shapiro lecture entitled, “Seven Weeks in Shakespeare’s Life.” Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the MCTE conference which I had been looking forward to considering how much I had enjoyed the Bright Ideas Conference I attended last spring. But nevertheless, I decided to go to the Shapiro lecture concerning one of the literary cannon’s great authors, Shakespeare.

James Shapiro was an intelligent speaker but was easily relatable to the audience as well. He was able to talk about Shakespeare in a more simplistic manner which in most cases is not done because this author’s life was so expansive. He referred to his book and lecture as a similarity to the movie Shakespeare in Love, in which rather than trying to speak about Shakespeare’s entire life skimming over several portions, he discussed a small portion of his life displaying him on an everyday basis.

There were several instances in which while describing Shakespeare’s daily routine he was able to read passages from his work or quotes of something he would have said in the royal court while performing his plays. It helped bring more understanding to not only the life of the author but to the “Elizabethan” world as well. By discussing these various aspects of Shakespeare’s life, one is able to instruct he would have written such plays, what they mean and a brief background of the history could be examined. This would offer several topics for students to write about. Also, breaking Shakespeare’s life down into a smaller portion I think would help students learning about him develop a clearer knowledge of some of his work.

For those of us future teachers who plan to instruct secondary students, attending lectures such as these is really important. The reason for this is that your furthering your own general knowledge of subjects you are more than likely going to teach. This is true especially in terms of famous authors such as William Shakespeare because they are so engrained in the literary cannon that teaching some version of his plays like Romeo Juliet and Macbeth becomes a necessity. Shapiro noted how the importance of this author is never ending and that he does not worry we will stop reading him in the classroom because he is too important to literature and provides several thought-provoking ideas for students to write about. As a result students would be receiving the best of both reading and writing. Also, students it is necessary for students to be exposed to different uses of the English language because this will help them become more developed in their thinking as well and this is the main goal of teaching these skills.

In a recent article I found with the New York Times, the author examines that though schools have begun to show improvement in such subjects including mathematics, they still are lacking in terms of performance in English skills like reading and writing. This occurrence has been more frequent among students at the middle school level. In addition to this, the goals of No Child Left Behind states that gaps between the performances of white students in relation to minorities would be improved as well but in reality, has only made “incremental” progress.

The tests, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and administered by the Department of Education, will be carefully scrutinized by lawmakers and educators debating whether to reauthorize the law this year, and if so, what changes to make.

They offer ammunition to both sides of the issue: the business leaders and other groups who support the law’s renewal, and the teachers’ unions and groups who say the law’s emphasis on standardized testing hurts schools.

President Bush called the results “outstanding,” adding, “These scores confirm that No Child Left Behind is working.”

As mentioned before, lawmakers are still discussing if the legislature itself will be reauthorized and if it is, the changes which will need to be made. In the midst of this debate are two separate groups including business leaders who wish its renewal and the teachers who don’t know whether to reinstate the law or not. Regardless, when speaking about the legislature President Bush feels that the law is showing the improvement which it was originally geared toward. But many, including several educators feel scores were better before this legislature was enacted. Some improvements have been made but in terms of English, scores have decreased by large numbers.  

Critics of the federal law, however, including an anti-testing group and a national teachers’ union, said that in many cases, achievement scores rose faster before the law was enacted than afterward.

This article struck my attention for several reasons. For the most part, it is sad that students who have been enduring these standardized tests are not acquiring the necessary reading and writing skills. Well, I’m sure they are to some degree but probably not in a way that suggest they will be able to write beyond a test. Honestly, I’m glad that NCLB has improved scores in some way but I also feel that time, money and energy gets lost amongst what is really important. As a future teacher, I feel like trying to instruct to a test which is not entirely helping my students learn to write would be the most frustrating task of all. Hence, the teachers’ union which would like to see this legislature itself “left behind.”

Another aspect that caught my attention was how business leaders would like to reinstate the law. I suppose I just don’t understand where they are coming from. Unlike teachers, they are never in the classroom having to handle this. Instructors spend much of their time teaching for a specific test, one test which will determine if their job is in question, rather than teaching students how to write more cognitively. In addition to this, students are learning that writing and reading is more like a “drill.” For my own high school experience, I remember hating practice for the test. It wasn’t that I didn’t like to write because I do, but this instruction was unbearable and it made me feel like I didn’t want to learn. This is what we are trying to avoid with our students. They deserve the opportunity to learn to read and write in ways they will enjoy and which will benefit them as they get older.

Scores Show Mixed Results for Bush Education Law

by Sam Dillon, September, 25 2007

The New York Times

Complete Article

According to an article I found with the Washington Post, now that lawmakers have come to terms with the research and facts that No Child Left Behind should be changed or at least improved, they are hoping one way of doing so will be to change the name of the legislature all together. That’s right; there will be no catchy, glorified tagline to convince people that it’s going to work. For many, they feel that the reason for the negativity for NCLB is in direct relation to its name being credited to George W. Bush, who at this current moment in his second term excessively unpopular.

The days of President Bush’s signature education initiative, No Child Left Behind, might be numbered — not the program, but the name.

Lawmakers working on legislation to reform the program say they are considering a new moniker. One reason, said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), a key sponsor of the original bill that transformed K-12 education in the country by ushering in an era of high-stakes standardized testing, is that “No Child” is inextricably linked to Bush. And Bush, he said, has become unpopular.

The reason that lawmakers feel that this needs to be changed is a result of the connotations when children are left behind. This is amusing because I would think that the reason people would be finding any part of the act itself offensive is because it is leaving children behind. As many of us know, this act slaps an overabundance of standardized testing on teachers and students. So much so that teachers spend most of their time teaching to a test while students spend their time trying to follow these rules while losing meta-cognitive education we strive for them to have. I still ask the question, how does changing the name of this legislature help students learn to write more coherently? The truth is it doesn’t and though many would like to see the name changed, it still doesn’t address the main issues of this act.

Furthermore, he said, people simply don’t like the name.

“People find it an incredible insult [to suggest] that we are deliberately leaving children behind,” he said.

An “aspirational” title, she said, could be “Give Children a Fair Chance Act.”

“But I’m not sure the actual legislation would live up to the name,” McGuire said.

The main purpose behind this act was to test to examine the performances of below average schools to enhance improvement. Therefore, students can be given the opportunity they deserve while receiving the tools necessary to learn to read and write because if they spend their time learning to write for a test, the likelihood is that they will not retain this information causing them to lack the necessary skills which contribute to our society. In addition to this, the names which have been given for possibilities sound exactly the same as they did before. Once again, I agree that changes do need to be made but aspects like the name is “moot.” I would love to see students strive in skills which are beneficial to them because the information they will remember, will be the same information they use when they enter college and the workforce.

Education Law Could Leave Behind Its Name

Valeries Strauss, September 24, 2007

The Washington Post

Complete Article

With all of the coverage surrounding the legislature No Child Left Behind, it is almost impossible not to discuss how this act has affected the lives of so many students. In an article I found using my Google Reader account with the Baltimore Sun, many are still questioning the validity of this since its creation five years ago with its credit going to George W. Bush. In an effort to “revamp” this act congress is looking to reauthorize this by displaying an effective change based on previous research. These actions will take place based on the assumptions that NCLB has its benefits and the best intentions in terms of improving student performance in addition to the quality of our schools.

Congress has begun hearings on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law. Members of Congress now have ample research to help them make key decisions on the future of a law that affects most of the children in the United States.

What the research reveals is that NCLB has flaws, but changes can be made that preserve its basic goals of school accountability and student improvement.

In other words, NCLB has caused many educators to focus their attentions on specific areas and skills. For example, teachers are more likely to spend a large portion of their time catering to students who are borderline “proficiency” as opposed to students who perform higher or lower than these standards. Unfortunately, this is the route which has been taken as a result of so many students, so little time meaning that because students who perform beyond expectations then there is no need for improvement. For those who perform below standards, their opportunity to learn how to read and write more clearly is completely lost because if they are not able to pass the test then teachers will focus on the “borderlines” in order to ensure their jobs.  

In addition to these factors, students are concentrating on only a couple specific subjects such as math and English. So in the meantime, while the effort behind this act’s intentions is to improve these skills, students’ skills end up lacking elsewhere. Due to the fact that instructors are teaching toward a test when it comes to reading and writing, students are not really learning to become cognitive individuals regardless. In other words, our jobs as future teachers is to help students improve their writing based on their own capabilities while guiding them to strive for more. With all of these limitations, doing this as an instructor becomes almost a fantasy in which most would enjoy helping students learn to cognitively think about their writing but the lack of government understanding prevents this.

Congress also ought to adopt the principle that schools should be rewarded for improving performance across the distribution of achievement, not just at the proficient level. RAND Corp. research shows that teachers are focusing more attention on students who are close to the proficient level and less attention on those at higher and lower levels.

I agree with the hopes of this legislature but I still feel that people in Congress are continuously trying to delay the changes. Often, they ask for more research which will help them in the decision making process. Don’t get me wrong, this is all understandable in terms of them making the correct decisions but at the same time, many students are not learning to write in ways which will help them more in their adult lives. As teachers, this is what is most important. But with the ideas of “intervention” when a school doesn’t perform at proficiency, how is this going to improve our students’ educations? I agree with the author by saying let’s make this law’s promise a reality.

Revamp NCLB to fulfill its prompise

By Brian Stecher, September 16, 2007

The Baltimore Sun

Complete Article