High School Graduation Tests: Solution or Problem?

By 2012, almost three-quarters of the nation's public school students in 26 states will have to pass a high school graduation test. The Center on Education Policy believes that exit exams have a significant impact on a student's education. States are leaning toward implementing end-of-course exams, which I assume would be standardized in order to maintain a consistent amount of rigor. By 2015, 11 states will include end-of-course assessments, including Maryland. Schools are moving away from exams that assess below the high school level. The overall idea is that teachers will be more likely to teach to a higher level. Another solution to the bad teacher problem.

I don't completely disagree with end-of-course assessments. Coming from the Massachusetts's public school system, I didn't have to take any myself, but I trusted that my teachers were doing a good job. I see the purpose and value in these changes, but I also foresee many challenges. As a teacher in a school that services over-aged and under-credited students, I witness daily the struggle of convincing a student that they should come to school at least three days out of the week, pushing a student to take notes even though they can't read the words that they are copying, writing notes to students' bosses asking them to cut their hours during the school day, sending home work when a student's child is sick, and transitioning a student back from being incarcerated.

There are many things holding a child back who is raised in poverty. I would never lower my expectations, but I am also realistic. Many of these students have made it to high school, some even to senior year, without reading or writing well. How long do I hold them back? Until they age out? When a student is almost 21, do you tell them that because they can't pass the high school test they will have to take the GED? Will we force more students to become drop-outs?

I witness students making up credits with "online" classes that are a joke. The teachers help them submit work. I watch students that I failed take my courses online, and I can't believe that my credit and that credit are worth the same. Clearly we are trying to give students diplomas, raise the graduation rate, and open up some opportunities. Until we figure out the problem of dealing with poverty and education before a student gets to high school, though, I think it's a hard bargain to push for a graduation test. It's not a student's fault if they had some bad teachers in their childhood. It's not even their fault if they missed a lot of school. They may make amazing gains in high school but that may not make up for the serious lack of gains they experienced in elementary and middle schools. To be honest, I don't know where I stand on this issue because I see so many problems with simply trying to raise graduation rates without assessments, but I also see why the push is enticing. Perhaps we should take a step back and ruminate on this a bit.

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thehomeroom/2008/08/high-school-exi.html

Parental Involvement-How do we get them to come?

If you ask most teachers how many parents show up for things like Back to School Night and Parent/Teacher Conferences, very few will give you a double digit answer. The largest number of parents I have had on a parent conference day was five and that was with a roster of over 80 students. My school, however, has started a new conference system and we had almost 80% parent attendance the first time! The new concept is called a Student Led Conference (SLC). SLCs are designed for students to be the ones telling their parents about their progress thus far in school. Two school days were set aside and teachers were responsible for scheduling the conferences to meet the needs of the parents’ work schedules, sometimes staying as late as 8:00pm for a conference. During the conference, the student, one teacher and the students’ family meets in a room for approximately thirty minutes. The student will walk the family through his/her four classes, explaining how he/she is doing in each and why. The parent has time to ask the student questions about their academics and about the student’s work samples. The very first SLC we had over 200 parents and family members show up, which was well over five times the attendance at any other school event.

Are there other programs at different schools that are successful in providing parental involvement? I would argue that these types of programs not only get parents involved in their students’ education, but they hold students more accountable for their own education as well.

Charter Schools-The Equalizer or the Equilavent?

In the wake of groundbreaking education reform and popular documentaries such as Waiting for Superman, the state of the education gap and the nation’s failing educational system has never been more at the forefront. For many, the answer to failing school districts is the idea of school choice via charter schools. Charter schools, essentially, are privately-operated schools that are funded by public dollars. The persons running the charter schools have full autonomy in governing the schools, but still have to teach to the requirements laid out by the state and/or city. Charter schools have seen success in some areas, but they are still are a relatively new phenomenon. The biggest success stories have been seen in charter schools that have had students from one community and can service that whole community, such as the success being seen in Harlem with the Harlem Children’s Zone.

Baltimore is a city that has employed its fair share of education reform, and currently about 10% of its students are enrolled in charter schools. The question has been whether or not charter schools are an effective solution, as traditionally they do not always make the major gains that many think they do. According to the Baltimore Sun, charter schools demonstrated a 5-percentage point lead in students demonstrating proficiency in reading and math when compared with traditional public schools for the 2009-2010 school year. While the gains are not significant, Chief Executive Officer Andres Alonso remains a major proponent of charter schools, saying that the increase is a sign that the district is moving forward. He suggests that both charter schools and traditional public schools are doing their jobs.

Source: http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-08-23/news/bs-ci-charter-school-performance-20100823_1_traditional-schools-charter-schools-ceo-andr-s-alonso

She works hard for the money

In his most recent column for the New York Times, Nikolas Kristof came out as a disappointingly lonely voice in the latest debate around teacher compensation: we should be paid more, not less. As political battles in Wisconsin and other states take on public employees as the roots of all financial problems, teachers have been characterized by some as lazy, part-time employees who don't deserve the inflated benefits and union rights they've been afforded.

Kristof argues that "...the bottom line is that we should pay teachers more, not less — and that politicians who falsely lambaste teachers as greedy are simply making it more difficult to attract the kind of above-average teachers our above-average children deserve."

The reader comments on his blog about the column take both sides of the argument. Some readers enthusiastically support his call to raise the professional regard for the teaching profession, with a salary to match. Others argue that increased salaries won't have much impact on the quality of individuals attracted to teaching, nor will it increase the caliber of teachers already in the classroom.

Separate from the union issue, I think, is the fundamental question of whether quality work is motivated by external or internal factors. Kristof quotes a study that shows the pay gap in New York between a teacher and laywer is over $115,000. While it's nice to say teachers are all bleeding hearts who do their jobs out of a calling to a higher moral order, our society makes a strong connection between power and money. I think it's no coincidence that we've become a highly litigious society; it's financially lucrative for lawyers to find reason to file a lawsuit. I can't help but wonder what would happen those same financial indicators pointed to well-educated citizens, rather than the generation living in the "If you have a phone, you have a lawyer" mentality.