News-Record.com

I think Wales is taking a wonderful first step away from simply generating a bunch of numbers which can show whatever you want them to show. I grew up on a farm and understand that you don't fatten a hog by putting him on a scale every day. Children don't learn much except how to take tests if you are constantly testing them. Set a curriculum, teach it and give periodic assessment tests to see what students know and what they need to be retaught or refreshed on. Don't "norm" or work the scores to meet some socio-political agenda and let the chips fall as they fall. But I doubt that would be palatable for many.

You must have some way to measure a student's progress. The problem is when students fail a test, the missed information is not taught again. Wouldn't it be great if tests would be used more as a tool to help definie and individual student's strengths and weaknesses rather than just a comparison for government data.

Tests are here to stay. I doubt the ACT and SAT tests will go away as a measure to get into college. Grading scales at various schools can be very different and subjective.

The N&R will not write about one of the best human interest stories that we have had in a long time. The naming of the NW area Elementary School. 51 nominations were made. 4 were for "Pleasant Ridge Elementary School' and 47 were not for "Pleasant Ridge Elementary School". Nevertheless, the Project Team recommended "Pleasant Ridge Elementary School" and the staff endorsed the name and sent it on to the BOE. The staff recommendation is not in accordance with the instruction on this subject. It does say anything about the staff taking sides on the debate. I do not understand why the N&R refuses to write about this. All kinds of names are comping up and there will be many speakers Thursday night. It is one thing that all can participate. The N&R could spread the word. However, they will not.

TestsAreHereToStay doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

I am a public school teacher in North Carolina. We are required to look at the benchmark test score data as a grade level, find out which objectives students did poorly on, and reteach as necessary. BTW we do this every quarter and the planning and preparation take several hours.

Meisteriehrer,

I am in the school system (and have been for many years) and I do know what I am talking about.

I was referring to individual students who do not learn certain material; are given worksheets after worksheets of material not "taught"; practice test books insteand of actual math lessons, and many other instances of just teaching "to the test", etc. A prime example is "Writing" when students just write to express an idea, are not taught proper grammar, cannot spell simple words and their papers are never corrected. Therefore, they never learn how to write a simple essays properly. There are many cases where there is no feedback to the student where he is lacking. I also realize that there is only so much time in a working day.

And one more point..... and so after "Benchmarks" then what when they fail the next standardized test?

I am not inferring that you are a poor teacher. But something is wrong with the system if our county test scores: ABC's, AYP'S, SATs, graduation rates continue to go down or remain stagnant. There is obviously a disconnect somewhere in the system where children are not LEARNING the basics.

The "disconnect" you speak of is occuring at home and through circumstances which teachers have no control over.

Some of my student's parent's have an 8th grade education. Heck, I have two students whose parents speak zero English. I have three students whose fathers are in prison for domestic violence and/or selling drugs.

I have a student who is bi-polar, I have another student who is paranoid-schizophrenic.

I have a student who bounces back and forth between mom and dad during the week.

I have another student who was sexually abused by his uncle.

I have a student who lives with six sibblings in a single wide trailer.

And people wonder why test scores are going down????

Meisterlehrer,

You sound like a very experienced and concerned teacher.

What are your recommendations? How can these children overcome these tragic obstacles and become educate, contributing adults?

Meister,

I totally agree. There is only so much that teachers can do. They are not social workers and cannot undo the damage that goes along with some home lives. They bring their problems into the classroom. See the article today in the High Point Enterprises that states teachers are responsible for controlling the discipline. I would like the person who said this to be in your classroom and teach for three days. They wouldn't last one day in a real GC classroom.

Another reason that tests have gone down is that we have lost so many students to private schools for various reasons. One of the reasons is constant redistricting (under various pseudonums in HP) and the total disrespect that continues in our classrooms. We have lost over 400 students in High Point due to redistricting. These families take their smart students, volunteer time and donations with them.

I feel that busing children far from their homes to a new school address only excerbates the situation. Children are angry when they are removed from family surroundings and put on a long bus ride across town where they do not want to be. In addition, the parents have no means of transportation bring their children home from school if they are sick. These are the very children that need more resources and constructive time in school, not time spent sitting on a 90 minute bus ride.

here are my thoughts on all of these EOCs:

http://www.geocities.com/hueyforguilfordschoolboard/1-19-07.doc

this is from a recent blog entry. It's sad what we're doing to our children.

E.C.

It's totally understandable. Morgan's great- great-great greandfather on her mothers side-the outlaw Josey Wales never did have any use for that there da'id burn testing. The only measure then of a man, was how fast he could draw and whether he could shoot staight.

Now-a-days you got that da'id burn Deena Hayes, possibly a decendant of Gabby Hayes, who legend has it, made a trip back east 'fore he died and had one of them May-December romances, who thinks there should be other measures, and if your skin is a certain color, you need to get paid-not tested!

That a way, Josey! Tell 'em to stick that there testing where the sun don't shine!

We miss the real issue.

1) If schools, teachers, principals, boards and superintendents would be willing to hold back for remediation then standardized tests would never be needed or at least reduced.
Schools could focus on education not head filling.

2) Everyone need not take college prep.

The standardization ( testing ) came along because we failed to do 1 above.
Finals are still acceptable.

We lost trust in the system. Rightfully so.
Because we simply pushed everyone on.

The problem is that things like mathematics are “ruthlessly cumulative”.
Once pushed on you are forever lost. You can’t understand page 6 if you haven’t
mastered page 3.

SAT’s and ACT’s are the colleges tool. If you want,”in” you meet the entry requirements period.

Agree 100% Not only are you lost in Mathematics but the same principle applies to Foreign Languages.

For those students who have absolutely no desire or possible the drive or intelligence to pursue a four year college career why are they even required to take some of the higher maths? It would be nice if they could just conquer the basics: decimals, fractions, measurements, per cents, multiplication.....

We are not doing students any favors to keep passing them if they don't know the work. We only set them up to fail and eventually they shut down and drop out when they are old enough.

We won't even get into putting those who struggle the most on a 90 minute bus ride across town, thus only changing the real estate but not the real problem, wasting 3 hours of their day when they could be in tutoring.

My sources inside Andrews tell me preliminary EOC scores trickling in indicate they're not going to make it again this year, and this with only about 900 students in the building...

Unbelieveable...

E.C.

Mr. Huey, your last word ,"unbelievable", imparts a tone to your post, which might be interpreted as "those lousy teachers" or "those foolish students"...but maybe you mean "those incompetent administrators"? Please clarify. I infer from your previous post you aren't blaming the children, since you are saddened by what "we are doing to them". Can you be more direct than "we"?

To whom would you point as the culprit for such "unbelievable" alleged preliminary results at Andrews? And please be specific to what the person or people responsible have done or not done to cause these results.