Teacher Letter to Obama
Anthony Cody is collecting letters from teachers to President Obama--perhaps our voices can be heard. http://www.facebook.com/inbox/readmessage.php?t=1155581610692
My letter is below.
Dear President Obama
With many challenging years in school reform under my belt, I am thankful to work for the last four years in a small urban 6-12 urban school that is not based on a prescribed model but rather on a big vision for every student's active participation and positive contribution to the 21st century world. While our school is imperfect, everyone is dedicated and with a 100% graduation and college acceptance rate as well as portfolio presentations providing evidence of student learning and skills tied to a graduate profile, we have data to support our own anecdotal evidence of student development and achievement.
The measures on the standardized tests are inadequate to assess the internalized habits, dispositions, skills and knowledge that we see our students developing, namely their capacities for leadership, creativity to overcome constraints, taking action to help others, seeing issues through multiple perspectives, belief in their responsibility and agency in the world, ability to build a case or analyze another's argument. It is not easy or simple, nor could it be taken to scale and standardized to hold teachers and students who were not committed to this particular vision, "accountable."
As an educator with a background in qualitative assessment, it breaks my heart to see children's abilities and potential reduced to test scores, their days in schools reduced to preparation to do well on a test, teaching reduced to scripted lessons and canned curricula. Not because I do not believe in accountability, rigor or quality teaching, but precisely because I do.
Several years ago I worked in a school with generally high test scores (even 100% proficient for third grade readers one year) with relatively weaker numbers in writing. So for years, this data "drove" their district mandated school wide focus on writing and they gave the kids the message that as a community they were weak in writing and had to work hard to improve these scores. One year, the district paid for the testing company to release a few test items to the school for information. When we analyzed these few items, we learned that the students' scores were proficient and advanced in the actual writing samples. It was on the multiple choice questions where they had to choose an answer with no context that they lost points.
We were left with sobering choices to make. Would we choose to spend less time on teaching them to be writers in order to work on how to take a multiple choice test to ensure our data would satisfy district requirements for growth measured by the test? What would our choice do to or for them in their lives as writers?
I have seen students challenged and inspired to work hard, investigate, create, strive for greatness in all subjects and still not reliably score well on the state test. We need to learn from the meager results we've seen these past ten years to develop an innovative and realistic alternative for gathering evidence of student progress aligned with a clear vision of who our students will be, what they will know and be able to do as a result of their years with us in schools. With sufficient resources and support (probably a fraction of what goes to testing), every school could institute a rigorous system for students to demonstrate their relevant knowledge and skills.
In small schools, we say we will ensure that each child is known well and seen by at least one adult. it has always struck me as sad that this is such a hard thing to accomplish in the buildings where our children spend at least half their waking hours. Standards and tests barely scratch the surface of what we need to provide for and foster in our children if we are to engage rather than alienate them in becoming active responsible citizens and if we are to include everyone in, as you say Mr. President, forming a more perfect union.
Let's expand rather than reduce the vision of what our children and our country can achieve.
Thank you.
Marjorie Larner
University Partnership Site Coordinator
Denver Center for International Studies
Denver, Colorado
My letter is below.
Dear President Obama
With many challenging years in school reform under my belt, I am thankful to work for the last four years in a small urban 6-12 urban school that is not based on a prescribed model but rather on a big vision for every student's active participation and positive contribution to the 21st century world. While our school is imperfect, everyone is dedicated and with a 100% graduation and college acceptance rate as well as portfolio presentations providing evidence of student learning and skills tied to a graduate profile, we have data to support our own anecdotal evidence of student development and achievement.
The measures on the standardized tests are inadequate to assess the internalized habits, dispositions, skills and knowledge that we see our students developing, namely their capacities for leadership, creativity to overcome constraints, taking action to help others, seeing issues through multiple perspectives, belief in their responsibility and agency in the world, ability to build a case or analyze another's argument. It is not easy or simple, nor could it be taken to scale and standardized to hold teachers and students who were not committed to this particular vision, "accountable."
As an educator with a background in qualitative assessment, it breaks my heart to see children's abilities and potential reduced to test scores, their days in schools reduced to preparation to do well on a test, teaching reduced to scripted lessons and canned curricula. Not because I do not believe in accountability, rigor or quality teaching, but precisely because I do.
Several years ago I worked in a school with generally high test scores (even 100% proficient for third grade readers one year) with relatively weaker numbers in writing. So for years, this data "drove" their district mandated school wide focus on writing and they gave the kids the message that as a community they were weak in writing and had to work hard to improve these scores. One year, the district paid for the testing company to release a few test items to the school for information. When we analyzed these few items, we learned that the students' scores were proficient and advanced in the actual writing samples. It was on the multiple choice questions where they had to choose an answer with no context that they lost points.
We were left with sobering choices to make. Would we choose to spend less time on teaching them to be writers in order to work on how to take a multiple choice test to ensure our data would satisfy district requirements for growth measured by the test? What would our choice do to or for them in their lives as writers?
I have seen students challenged and inspired to work hard, investigate, create, strive for greatness in all subjects and still not reliably score well on the state test. We need to learn from the meager results we've seen these past ten years to develop an innovative and realistic alternative for gathering evidence of student progress aligned with a clear vision of who our students will be, what they will know and be able to do as a result of their years with us in schools. With sufficient resources and support (probably a fraction of what goes to testing), every school could institute a rigorous system for students to demonstrate their relevant knowledge and skills.
In small schools, we say we will ensure that each child is known well and seen by at least one adult. it has always struck me as sad that this is such a hard thing to accomplish in the buildings where our children spend at least half their waking hours. Standards and tests barely scratch the surface of what we need to provide for and foster in our children if we are to engage rather than alienate them in becoming active responsible citizens and if we are to include everyone in, as you say Mr. President, forming a more perfect union.
Let's expand rather than reduce the vision of what our children and our country can achieve.
Thank you.
Marjorie Larner
University Partnership Site Coordinator
Denver Center for International Studies
Denver, Colorado
posted by Unknown | 6:09 PM
1 Comments:
the power of being known by someone.
now.. create/facilitate that in spaces of permission. where you ave nothing to prove.
betterness.. ongoing.. and breathtaking..
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