Praying for a Test....

My hyperlinking is not working properly. I cannot get anything to hyperlink correctly. I am sorry.

http://www.ednews.org/articles/in-south-korea-nation-stops-for-mega-exam.html

In South Korea, today, the entire nation stopped as almost 700,000 high school students took graduation tests. Their desire to do well has been such a promoted idea that people are even praying observantly for more than 100 days. This devotion to such a higher education should be influential throughout the world. But some view it as a waste of time. There is so much stress and anxiety there are reports every year of teenage suicides because of the importance of this test. This test can possibly affect their futures in ways no one can imagine. It determines what college you can get into and what sort of education or career you may end up with. The extremely high college entrance rate of 83% is nothing to balk at either. However, the test took 9 hours to complete, so rigor and difficulty are probably words that undermine what actually happens during the test. How does this compare to our school system? Students take tests to see if the schools are teaching the right material. We are penalized if the students can't pass tests. Yet these students spend hours and hours on their own without persuasion to study for a test that can grant them every wish they ever wanted. Importance is placed on the quality of teaching, not the quantity. They probably never test to see how teachers are teaching. CRCT and AYP is just a letter sequence to them. Yet they are ahead of us in education, with more engineers and scientists graduating from college every year. Where have we gone wrong where testing has replaced the learning environment. With all of the new funding, it is going to be a rough road for our education system. It is not a good idea to link pay to testing because it will only mean teachers teach to a test that has no meaning or relevance for kids, because NCLB says we can't hold them back even if they fail miserably. I was hired to do a job and that job was to teach students about technology, show them how math, science, history, and writing are relevant, and make connections to the real world and careers every chance to make these kids productive citizens. However, the focus is on meeting expectations set by individuals who are not even associated with education. Let them sit in my classroom for 2 weeks and see how things are. They want to make things better, make us more competitive, but we never raise the bar on ourselves, simply the students, but then allow many to pass under like limbo and skate through the system. Can we please take a page out of the South Korean handbook we missed in ours about education. It IS important, it IS relevant, and it WILL get you somewhere. The lies on TV and on the internet are not helping our case. Sorry for the rant, but it is sad to see how things have changed.

Closing the Achievement Gaps

Let me go ahead and apologize for the formatting/nonworking hyperlinking to about half of this page. As I was typing and adding hyperlinks along the way, something happened with my edit post page and I could not take away the underlining. Please ignore it. I couldn't control it!

New Report on Achievement Gaps

So with all of the hubbub about schools lowering achievement goals, too much money being cut from education, and even news of how different states are doing certain programs, there is promising news. The Center on Education Policy published a new report that describes the situation in achievement gaps between different student populations. The report shows that in 74% of all cases from 2002 to 2008, minorities and low-income students closed the gaps in achievement across all grades with their counterparts. Even though this is promising news, there is still some gloom over the way all 50 states test. Taken from another article, but cited within this one, "Part of the progress on the percent-proficient measure is because the proficiency bar is set so low," said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California-Berkeley. There is an alarming number of people who are calling for change, but those in charge are not doing much about it. In the actual report, found here, there are some very good possibilities that may come from the study. There were significant increases in Hispanic test scores and African American test scores, specifically in 4th grade math, which shows that new curriculum and methods that are being implemented are beginning to work. In other data, it showed that almost every subgroup closed the gap with White students in specific areas from 5 points to almost 25 points on standardized

tests. I would like to believe that we are now truly in the realm of unbiased education and every student has an equal opportunity. Being at a school that is almost completely comprised of minority students, there are many unique challenges in order to reach these students. However, as we move to standards based classrooms and seek to diversify the way in which we deliver the curriculum, students seem to be better able to grasp the concepts. When we can stray from teaching to the test and give them life-long skills and concepts, they hold onto them longer. Educational theory also suggests that when the students do hands-on activities and even when students teach others, more than 60% of the knowledge is retained compared to about 10% when lectured to. This huge shift in the ability of students to comprehend and the need to differentiate instructional methods can be a good thing, as shown in the seemingly good test results. I would say that it has benefited education to start looking to teaching all and reaching all instead of just the majority. When I was in school, I knew, unfortunately, I was at an advantage because of how the material was directed. My friends, most of them minorities, would not benefit from the direction of the curriculum. This proved so in the standardized tests we took, including the SAT, ACT and AP tests. I generally outscored my friends who were smarter than I was, but were minorities. It appears that time is over and now every student has the opportunity to take control of their own education and that as we teach to new curriculum, the achievement gaps are closing. Hopefully in another 5 or 6 years, it will show that all races are equal in education.