Texas schools & HISD -- Exposed again

I was in school about twenty five years ago, but this was around when they started giving tests that one had to pass in order to progress in grades, and grade the schools. Back then we spent about a week on covering what the test would be like. I always thought it was a waste of class time.

Typically most comparisons of science/geography/math shows the average American student to be far deficient of his modern European or Asian student. They get tested, but only after graduation, for admittance into higher levels of learning IIRC.

 

I've always thought having special abilities students having the exact same rights as non special abilities students a waste of money. IIRC 3 or 4 x is spent on these students compared to a normal student.

 

I've always thought having special abilities students having the exact same rights as non special abilities students a waste of money. IIRC 3 or 4 x is spent on these students compared to a normal student.


Yeah, the article I posted is ridiculous. How does the government expect a 12th grade special ed student to perform at the level of a 12th grade regular student? If they were able to do that, they wouldn't be special ed!

People who have real disabilities and are unable to learn cannot and should not be expected to perform at those levels. Yeah, you want to do what you can to help them and make them as functional as possible in society, but some of them simply aren't going to get there, no matter how much attention is paid or money spent. NCLB is a disaster waiting to happen - Bush just won't have to deal with it because the penalties conveniently don't take effect until he's gone.

 

I'm 49.

My public education was broader than my parents but not deeper. Out education was geared toward the CAT and SAT.

I have 17 and 20 YO kids in public schools (not in Texas) and their public education is neither broader nor deeper than mine.

It's not just a problem in Texas and it has been spiralling downward for many years.

 

It's just as bad in VA... the education is all geared to stupid idiotic SOL's (Standards of learnings)

I moved here after my freshman yaer in highschool, but I was in most junior classes by that time, and these idiots made me retake all the SOL's for classes 9-11 even though I was in Pre Calc, they had me doing Algebra 1, and geometry... pure idiocracy

 

I don't really know anything about the current Houston, or Texas, public school system, since my experience ended in the 4th grade in the late '60s . However, one thing needs to be pointed out about the NYTimes article that launched this thread. The Times is not exactly an impartial reported of the facts. far beyond its well documented bias against all things Bush (and I predict we will see many more "investigative" articles of this type as we get closer to election day- kinda like the LATimes vendetta against Ahnold), the Times is currently embroiled in the fight over the future of New York City schools that has been raging for the past several weeks here. There is an attempt by Mayor Bloomberg and many parents to create some sort of accountability in the New York City school system. The teachers' union is squarely against it, and the Times is firmly on the side of the union.

The NYC school system is hugely complex. There are over 1,000,000 students and some 1,100 schools. It is dominated by the teachers' union and is rife with corruption and cronyism. Most city schools are notoriously underachieving, with the exception of certain magnet schools. A few years ago, there was an attempt to place Edison schools in charge of a few of the worst schools in the system. Despite owverwhelming support from the parents of most of the children affected (overwhelmingly poor and minority), the teachers' union, supported by the Times, which ran editorial after editorial against the hand-over, defeated the proposal. If the Times truely cared about the children, in New York and in the nation, it would put aside its institutional biases and report honestly on the state of education in its own city.

 

Public education fails to instill in students the single most important aspect of education:

Curiosity.

The purpose of public education shouldn't be presenting facts -- it should be spurring students to ask "Why?". If you can teach a child to ask that simple question, education takes care of itself.

You can have all the standardized tests you want, but if students aren't curious, the education is essentially worthless (except for maintaining the status quo and pumping out obedient and brain-washed citizens, but that's another issue). And, as anybody who works with kids will tell you, you don't spark interest by teaching them to take tests and memorize facts.

I don't have an answer -- but I can say with confidence that standardized tests and one-size-fits-all mentalities don't work in advancing our most valued national institution: public education.

 

Thomas Friedman's column is an Op-Ed, and I although i often think he's way to full of his own cleverness,in this case he's right on the money. I don't necessarily think of him as liberal or conservative, but he does have a healthy ego!

my problem with "liberal media bias" is not what is printed on the editorial page. After all, the WSJ and other conservative outlets are as relentlessly parrtisan on their editorial and OP-ED pages as the Times. But when those biases find their way into "news" i have a real problem with it. in this case, the times' motives are not exactly squeaky clean.

 

actually, the jason blair scandal was abit more severe than that. the times ran one of his articles on the front page, above the fold, accusing ashcroft of dereliction of duty in the DC Sniper case. they never printed a retraction

didn't say i didn't believe it- in fact i said i know nothing about the situation in Houston/texas public schools. i was merely pointing out that the Times has an additional agenda on this issue, one that's quite well known in New York, and that that should be a part of the debate.

 

"contaminate?" is that what you call a perspective that differs from your own? isn't that the kind of ideological rigidity that's being railed against in the "personal or political" thread?

 

Whehter you agree with the NY Times as a source of "liberal bias" or not, the article is accurate. Ask any educator and they will tell you as much.

 

Is the problem that too much weight is put on the standardized test, the particular test itself, or standardized tests in general?

I think it's near impossible to attempt to evaluate teachers based on standardized tests, as each teacher, even within a particular school, has different classes and each student has different objectives. Did the teacher that took a top student to his maximum potential do a 'better' job than the one who kept a struggling student interested, learning and in school?? The standardized test would suggest he did.

But I do see the benefit of standardized tests. A benchmark is meaningful. A test is supposed to measure achievement and knowledge, (otherwise, what's the point), the key is ensuring that the test does accurately measure this.

I also think Basso's point about the objectivity of the source is relevant. If the issue is a hot one in NY, and the NYT has a possible bias towards the teachers Union, it does possibly put their views in perspective. Doesn't mean their points are invalid -- just that you have to consider the biases of the writer. Teachers Unions tend to dislike standardized tests because the results can be (sometimes inappropriately) used to pass judgment on individual teachers or teaching districts. This is counter to most Union philosophy.

Interesting topic. No easy answers. Lots of politics.

 

the Time's status as the "paper of record" hardly renders it immune to biases. in fact, i'd say it's much more insidious when a paper as respected as the times does it than when a fringe outfit does, you expect more from the Times, or at least you used to.

in any case the point of my post was that the Times has an additional agenda on this issue, and it has allowed its fealty to the teachers union, and its rabid anti-republican bias, to interfere with what is in the best interest of New York City school children.

 

Related to part of the discussion here:

New rule for severely disabled students

Thursday, December 4, 2003 Posted: 11:45 AM EST (1645 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Education Department officials have decided children with the most severe learning problems can be held to a different academic standard than their peers -- a move that will ease pressure on schools struggling to make yearly progress.

The new department rule to be announced within days would affect a limited number of students deemed to have "significant cognitive disabilities" by their states. It would allow those students to be tested against standards appropriate for their intellectual development. And, more significantly, their scores would be counted as part of their school's performance.

Currently, students who take tests based on different standards can't be considered "proficient." This penalizes schools as they add up yearly achievement, which is critical because schools that receive federal aid for the poor but fail to make adequate yearly progress face increasing sanctions from the government.

Many schools have failed to make annual progress because their disabled students didn't score high enough on tests or because too few of those students participated.

Ross Wiener, policy director for the advocacy group, The Education Trust, said the rule will offer clarity and put more focus on raising achievement.

"That's important, because then you get into the hard work of, how do we do it?" he said. "That's the real challenge."

Education Department officials said they tried to find balance, recognizing the call for different standards in limited cases without eroding school accountability for all students.
Complex debate

The rule does not spell out which children meet the definition of having a significant cognitive disability, leaving that to the states with some narrow limits. The plan also requires that any alternative standards for students must be tied to state academic content.

State leaders and education groups negotiated with department officials for months on the language, part of a long-standing, complex debate over how to fairly test disabled children.

"Schools around the country will not be identified by their states as 'needing improvement' if their students with the most significant disabilities are unable to take the same tests as their peers," Education Secretary Rod Paige said. He said the rule also "protects children with disabilities from being wrongly excluded from accountability systems that provide valuable information to parents and educators."

The rule targets kids with the most severe learning problems who are required to take tests in their grades. It would affect only 1 percent of students at the state and school district levels. That's about 10 percent of all special education students.

States could appeal for a higher amount. Other children could take alternative tests, as they can now, but they would still be held to the same grade-level standards as other students.

James Wendorf, executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities, generally embraced the rules. He said concerns raised about children's performance in special education should put additional focus on basic quality of education.

By 2005-06, all states must test students in grades three though eight in math and reading annually and at least once during high school. The No Child Left Behind law of 2002 also requires a science test at least once in elementary, middle and high school by 2007-08. The goal is to ensure all children are proficient in reading and math by 2014.

 

I thought this was a thread about education, not about the myth of the liberal media.