News-Record.com

"Fewer than half of students in grades 4, 7 and 10 passed the state writing test."

"District officials admit they haven't paid as much attention to writing as they should."

With situations like this, how in the HELL could our school board ever consider a raise for their Almighty Grier???

Less than 50% is FAILURE.

Our school board must use some heckuva curve when giving Dr. Grier his Evaluation.

How can you find out your son's/daughter's score on the 10th grade writing test?

Only 4 students in the 7th grade made a "4" on the test! That's right, 4 in the entire 7th grade in Guilford County! I am so appalled that I can't even describe how mad this makes me! WE have to get back to basics! Reading Writing and Arithmatic!!! Once you know the basics then you can truly start thinking and learning outside the box! Our system is not doing what is necessary!

Debora,

This is what happens when your focus is innovative and not practical!

The school board is has gone so far out in left field that it can't find home plate.

With the board pushing new and innovative programs such as the High Point Plan, they are neglecting school facility maintenance and basic education at the very schools they are spending millions to implement programs that have caused total chaos within the county.

How do you reason with a group of people that are willing to appoint a committee in order to decide if they will accept 2 million dollars to renovate a football stadium?

This group of people did not even appoint a committee (at least not a publicized committee) before they started the destruction of the high schools in High Point.

When the headlines were about the SLC's in Greensboro, we sit over here in High Point with the SLC's and the High Point Plan the SLC's are small peanuts to High Point students/parents comparatively.

I know everyone is tired of hearing about the High Point plan and all I can say is until you walk in our shoes you just do not know!

Well, this a nice wake up call for the school system. Many teachers have been aware that we need to do more work with writing skills; however, we're often asked to use our time for anything but that. As a result, many schools are now asking all of their staff to incorporate writing somehow into their lesson plans. PE teachers, math teachers, and others happily comply while others see it as a waste of time. The real burden though falls on the Language Arts or English teacher. I'm still working on my time management skills and trying to figure out how to effectively grade a short writing assignment when I can have 30 or more kids in just one English class.

While I certainly do not have all the answers, I do know that changes need to take place. For example, I taught middle school one year in Guilford County and was appalled that the majority of my students could neither write a complete sentence nor knew basic capitalization and spelling rules. When I taught in Virginia, we were required to teach spelling and grammar as one of our main units and the quality of my students' writing reflected this.

We need to start teaching grammar again and emphasizing the basics. Many students reach the high school level unable to write an essay, like the one required for the state writing test, because they haven't mastered writing a well written paragraph yet. The idea of teaching "holistic writing" and letting the kids learn the rules as they write is not effective. It is important to keep in mind too that the new SAT also emphasizes writing skills. The first section of the test is writing an essay in 25 minutes. If writing is not emphasized in every grade, our scores will continue to remain the same.

In the past, writing has only been emphasized during 4th, 7th, and 10th grades because those grades are the ones that have to prepare for the state writing test. This is not effective and puts all of the pressure on the teachers for those years. Students will become better writers when writing is emphasized every year.

Andi,

Great points!

I've made some similar points, as well as a few others, here.

Bruce,

At the post I mentioned to Andi above, I mention a column about the state writing test that Carole Boston Weatherford, a former News & Record weekly editorial-page columnist, wrote.

I have a copy of it somewhere, but if it's not too much trouble, could you either provide a link or post it here on The Chalkboard?

It would be great for others to have the opportunity to read what she wrote.

Sincerely,

Hardy

Andi is correct that the emphasis is on writing in 4, 7th only (my child hasn't gotten to 10th yet.) I haven't figured out why every year my kid has 4-6 weeks of poetry but doesn't have a written assignment weekly. BTW he is AL and should be doing much more intensive work. This goes along with the article today about middle school cirriculum. As far as I can tell he could have skipped 6th grade language arts and stayed at home. His EOG's also reflect that comment! His fifth grade work was more challenging and more comprehensive! I found out that the teachers that teach AL in middle school aren't AL certified and most have no AL training. No one would stand for that if these kids were on the lower end of the range... just another example of letting the high end fend for themselves!

I want to be one of the first to congratulate the School Board on receiving 11 million more dollars from the generous Democratic County commissioners. That boils down to more millions to waste.

Happy Spending!

In my daughter's school 5, 4th graders scored a 4 on the writing test. I think alot has to do with kids deviating from the prompt. When I attended a meeting regarding the test, the principal said that just because your child is AL doesn't mean he or she will pass the test. If that is the case, they should spend more time on teaching students how to take this test. They spend almost all year preparing for the EOG's. Frankly, the test is not a good measure on whether someone can write. In other states, they base, their writing tests on mechanics, letter writing, and practical skills; the whole test is not based on creative writing. Maybe the state needs to reevaluate the test.

The poor writing scores are the result of the schools not focusing on reading, grammar and spelling skills. Often the teacher, has limited skills in reading and they do not expect a lot out of the children. Children are taught to read
but the continuos need to read and improve comprehension is not a great priority. All teachers must help out in both reading and writing. The art teacher needs to require papers on artists. The tennis teacher needs to give tests on tennis rules. The vast majority of schools in Guilford County treat reading and writing like any other subject - art-PE, etc.
The BOE has never set reading and writing as a priority.

-What will be Griers excuse this time?

-Remember Griers reasoning for the High Point magnets schools. Preparation for the future job market. To bring future growth. Well all these magnet schools will no good if you can't write.
-They will probably be writing better in India soon (English) if not already. Draw your own conclusions.

The school Board and Grier are obviously aiming at the wrong measures.

Lets sack the whole lot...

I want to be one of the first to congratulate the School Board on receiving 11 million more dollars from the generous Democratic County commissioners. That boils down to more millions to waste.

Happy Spending!

Posted by: liz at June 24, 2005 08:24 AM

Along with a big pay raise for the school board.

Hasn't the mindset of the powers that be----that if it don't work throw more money at it------gotten a little old.

Just wait until Trudy Wade is off the county comm. You'll see even more money thrown at failing programs and idiotic administrators. I just wish I could figure out some way to cash in on these fools. Maybe I should pretend to be a consultant of some type? They seem to love those.

Everyone is so worried about how few 4s there were on the test, when really the focus should be on how many failing 1s and 2s there were.
While a 4 is excellent, a 3 is good too.

Didn't they add more grading based on grammar and spelling this year?

Seymour,

Here is that column from Carole Boston Weatherford. It ran Feb. 12, 2001:

WRITING IS AN ART THAT ELUDES STANDARDIZATION

In less than four weeks, North Carolina's fourth- and seventh-graders will take the state writing test. Armed with sharpened pencils and grammatical rules, they will attempt in 50 short minutes to draft paragraphs or essays that show mastery of such skills as organization, description and reasoning. Tenth-graders face a more daunting 100-minute challenge - to analyze and respond to a literary passage.

Right up to the March 6 test date, teachers will drill students on building sentences and paragraphs. Ironically, the state Board of Education won't decide until March 1 whether the scores will even count in the ABCs of Public Education, an accountability program that links teacher bonuses to student performance. This news follows findings by the state's writing assessment task force that the current test is not a true measure of skill and that the stress of test preparation makes many students dislike writing. The task force proposes new testing and scoring procedures.

Recommendations include giving students a choice of topics, using trained North Carolina teachers to grade the exams and providing separate scores for different writing skills. The current test gives the same topic to all students in the same grade, does not count grammar or spelling in the final score and is graded by temporary workers in Houston, Texas. The proposed changes would be an improvement.

While educators tweak the test, parents simply pray that their children will pass it. As a mother, I hope my children will make the grade. As a writer, however, I am troubled by the very nature of the writing assessment. Attempts to standardize a skill that is fundamentally self-expressive and individualistic are fraught with pitfalls.

The greatest casualty may be students' attitudes toward writing. Many adults read for pleasure. But few, besides professional wordsmiths and aspiring writers, enjoy putting pen to paper. Many people write only when they must; then, their skills are rusty. A 1998 survey by the National Association of Manufacturers revealed that more than half of employers found workers seriously lacking in basic writing skills. This at a time when communication skills are key to career success.

For my part, I have always loved writing despite some ridiculous rules I learned early on. Do not use contractions. Don't start a sentence with "and" or "but." And don't end a sentence with a preposition. Years passed before I found that those so-called rules were written neither in stone nor in textbooks. I was already a working writer when the fundamentals of the craft - detail, example, word choice, sentence variety and smooth transitions - finally became clear to me, though writing itself was no easier. I have since written more advertisements, articles, brochures, poems, press releases, reports and speeches than I can count. I must confess: The more I write, the better my writing becomes. As the saying goes, "Practice makes perfect."

If writing is a process, can we expect a fourth-grader to write a perfect paragraph? Probably not. There is but one way to gain writing proficiency - hands-on. In that regard, test preparation is beneficial. The test forces teachers to stress writing and students to practice creating sentences, paragraphs and essays. Teaching to the test is risky, however. A focus on quick first-draft writing neglects the fine points of composition and style, complexities that can be fathomed only through discovery, revision and editing.

Draft-by-painstaking draft, the possibilities of language and the power of words arerevealed to the writer. Ultimately, student writers learn between the lines and in themargins, where the nitty-gritty of revising begins. Of course, one-on-one feedback fromteachers or tutors enhances and accelerates learning. Similarly, a wealth of knowledge garnered from books and life experience gives student writers an edge. Still, there are no shortcuts to teaching or learning the art of writing.

Nor is there a fast, easy way to assess the write stuff. There may be a fairer method than administering a one-time test, however. The assessment should consider portfolios of writing samples that reflect different types of writing, varying topics and, most importantly, student growth.

And speaking of Seymour, you ought to check out his thoughts on the writing scores over at his blog: www.seymourhardy.blogspot.com. Really insightful stuff.

Bruce,

Thank you for making Mrs. Weatherford's piece available.

I had forgotten how long ago her piece had appeared in the News & Record.

But her points are still very relevant to the discussion about assessing writing.

You had made a comment at my blog about having the writing test scores count toward the ABCs.

I may be wrong about this, but for the last few years, I believe teachers have been told that the scores MIGHT count, with the decision not to have the scores count coming after the test has been administered or maybe even after the scores have been assigned.

Again, I can't speak for every school, but I believe a great deal of time, attention, and emphasis has been given to the state writing test by our seventh-grade language arts teachers. I know for a fact that they've stressed over it every year.

More can always be done.

That is both the beautiful and the painful truth about teaching. (And of course, that truth doesn't just apply to teaching.)

Sincerely,

Hardy

Okay, it's clear the writing scores are unacceptably low. I think we can all agree that a passing rate of less than 50 percent is atrocious.

But to everyone who said that the school board and Dr. Grier are to blame for the low writing scores, let me ask this: should they also receive credit for the reading and math scores? After all, those scores are pretty darn good - more than 80 percent passing reading and nearly 90 percent passing math.

I mean that as a serious question. I'm not trying to suggest that the district's leadership doesn't deserve blame for the poor writing scores. But if they do, doesn't it work both ways?

Does a broken clock get credit for having the right time twice a day?

I mean that as a serious answer.

I don't know if that's an accurate comparison, Buck. Unlike broken clocks and the correct time, high test scores don't just happen by accident. Someone has to be responsible.

My question was if the school board is to blame for the bad writing scores, aren't they equally responsible for the good reading and math scores?

Bruce,

The answer is of course it should work both ways. Dr. Grier and the Board deserve kudos for the reading and math scores.

Most people who comment here are just reticent to admit that there is any good in our schools.

There obviously is.

Now lets fix the reading scores.

Lets fix Grier and Duncan.

I think it is obvious that a test isn't valid if so few students, and we mean statistically very few, pass. My daughter is a fantastic writer and she got a 3 on the 7th grade test. I don't know who graded this one, but I have been on grading panels before and we were trained to a formula. If a child is a better writer than the set formula, they are penalized. Also, the prompt is easily misinterupted. A child's ability to think inside a box is a totally different issue than their writing ability. When my daughter told me the prompt and what she wrote about, I knew she had "blown" it. But I don't care since I don't think it is valid.

Just for you Hogghead,

Here's a list of what's going well in GCS:

There's an old management saying, "That which gets measured gets done". So, since we are testing math and reading skills, they are getting done, at the expense of everything else, but getting done. When we begin testing writing, it'll get done as well. (What will happen to math and reading then?) What a pity that we have to have outside testing to ensure that students grow the skills which they are there to gain. What would the results look like if we had no outside testing of students to ensure skill growth?

So, do we give Grier praise because he pushed testing of math and reading to the hilt and ignored other important skills? I think with a budget of $500 million per year, we could expect it all to get done, couldn't we?

I suppose if you teach all year for the math and reading tests that these scores will go up at the expense of everything else.

I have to agree with Reassigned that Grier and Duncan should be fixed. Afterall, we don't need rabid dogs reproducing in Guilford County, there is already six of those on the County Commissioners.

It is common knowledge among many teachers (this is at elementary level) that they "teach the test". There is so much class time spent out of the "practice books". There is so much pressure put on them with testing and, of course, they like those ABC bonuses.

With writing being more subjective, it is something harder to teach and/or prepare for.

I do not see much time being spent on the mechanics of writing; spelling being corrected, etc. There is more emphasis of getting the idea down and ignoring parts of speech and stucture. Also, it is kind of understood not to hurt a kid's "self-esteem" by correcting too much. How does this help someone in the end when they can't draft a simple letter or write a simple paragraph?

I have witnessed an Inservice Specialist come in a 5th grade class in the past; write two sentences on a board to correct the grammar and that is it. A half hour for two easy sentences that the teacher could teach and we pay money for such a "specialist".

There is no emphasis on parts of speech and proper usage.

Also when students use improper grammar, they are not corrected so they just continue to write in slang and poor grammar. It is sad to see a kid in 4th grade who can't spell simple words like "eye" or "ear" and can't start a sentence with a capital letter or end it with a punctuation mark.

Somewhere this writing is not being taught by many teachers. Many children are not expected to even speak proper grammar now so how can we expect them to put it in writing?

John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation, has a really interesting column on the writing results. John follows state testing issues as closely as anyone around and what he has to say is worth discussion.

Go to www.carolinajournal.com and click on "Right way to test" on the right side of the screen.

This link will take you directly to the column that Bruce mentioned above.

Have you ever listened to Dr. Grier, most of the board members or read some of the papers that teachers send home from school? The grammar is horrid. Someone needs to tell our superintendent that the phrase "might could" isn't proper grammar!

AND someone needs to tell Grier that when he says, "I mispoke" that even a person of below average intelligence can hear "I lied." It's his little semantics game.

I don't even want him "outta here" any more, I wish he would just go straight to hell.