Archive for the ‘Standards of Learning (SOLs)’ Category

The Students Are in Trouble

Friday, April 1st, 2011

It’s bad news on the science front—at least when it comes to education. Two-thirds of United States fourth graders were not proficient in science in 2009.

The situation wasn’t much better for older students.  Seventy percent of eighth-graders and 79 percent of 12th graders were not proficient in science on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Worse yet, some student population subsets bear the bulk of the poor performance, with white and Asian students performing significantly better than Hispanic and black students.

This is all according to this article in The Washington Post.

The article also says that many students don’t even reach basic levels (the level below proficient) of understanding when it comes to science.

According to the Post article, the following are some examples of what students should understand to have a basic understanding of science materials:

“A fourth-grader should be able to explain the benefit of an adaptation for an organism, an eighth-grader should be able to relate oxygen level to atmospheric conditions at higher elevations, and a 12th-grader should be able to solve a design problem related to the electrical force between objects,” the article stated.

Twenty-eight, 37, and 40 percent of fourth, eighth, and 12th graders respectively did not achieve a basic level of understanding on the required materials. The good news is that Virginia exceeded the national average when it came to students in the fourth and eighth grades. Still, there is much work to be done for everyone.

It seems almost cliché at this point to complain about the poor state of our nation’s education system. For years, it seems, we have been hearing about poorly performing schools, achievement gaps and the need to do something more. One solution is to throw money at the problem; but, in a land of limited resources, that is not a reasonable option.

This is where parents come in. Students who have interested and helpful parents often thrive in the classroom. In fact, a good, engaged parent can be a great equalizer for students who are falling behind.

There is only so much control parents have over their students’ education. Unless you can afford private school, or can move to a better neighborhood, your child will be assigned a school by your district. The teacher your child gets, the number and quality of his or her classmates, and the level of support from the school are all variables left somewhat to chance. The one piece of control you can exert as a parent is to be involved. Help your children with their homework. Stay alert to see if they are falling behind. Talk to teachers when necessary. Being involved will go a long way to ensuring students’ success.

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Is Standardized Testing Doing Its Job?

Friday, January 7th, 2011

Standardized testing: Children fear it. Adults wonder about it. Officials support it. But is it effective? According to Todd Farley’s recent article on The Huffington Post, that answer is “no way.”

Farley is the author of Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry. Despite being an outspoken critic of standardized testing in the media, he has somehow procured a job in the testing industry. In the article, he points out that, since he had a child, his opinion of the testing industry has changed. Whereas he once thought it just an incompetent money-making business, he now looks at it as a growth industry with serious consequences for his family and its attempts to support a needy child.

The whole article is tongue-in-cheek. He doesn’t really think the standardized testing industry is any good. To support that belief, he talks about people who get fired at one testing company easily getting rehired at another. He mentions companies that are lacking in their testing standards easily picking up new contracts. And he points out how test questions have been recycled state to state, test to test. The picture he paints is of an industry interested in business and nothing more. Our children are but cogs in a money-making machine, he seems to say.

Read the article here.

From accusations that tests are biased to concerns that students’ futures are too dependent on the results, standardized testing is often made a rhetorical punching bag. Yet, the basic idea behind testing is a good one: To evaluate how well students are doing.

It seems simple. With all the students we have in each state of this country, it is near impossible to determine how well they are doing according to grade level, when compared with each other, and when held up against students in the rest of the world. Standardized testing is one way that has been found to evaluate the quality of American education. That it has its shortcomings is obvious. That it might not be implemented effectively is possible. That is should not exist… who knows? Regardless, concerns about the industry do deserve attention.

If the standardized testing industry is cutting corners in order to make money off our youth, then investigations must be started, reforms must be made, and school systems will need to adjust accordingly. Farley’s article is an interesting starting off point to begin a look at the testing industry and how well, or poorly, it may be doing.

To read a 2009 Time article about the history of Standardized Testing, go here.

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AYP–Burden or Benefit

Monday, October 4th, 2010

Prince William County and Manassas schools had trouble meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals last school year, but is it poor education or extremely high standards that are responsible?

In Prince William, 28 out of 82 schools didn’t meet AYP in 2009-10, up four from the 2008-09 school year. The situation was even worse in Manassas where seven out of eight schools failed.

Of course, if you take Virginia as a whole, none of this seems surprising, and it becomes difficult to blame the problem on any one particular district. There are 132 school divisions in Virginia – 12 made AYP.

AYP testing is part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which seeks to measure the progress and performance of the nation’s students. Since it was enacted in 2002, there has been grumbling from many people. Some teachers feel that the necessity of meeting mandated benchmarks forces them to teach to the tests which determine AYP, rather than simply concentrating on giving their students a well-rounded education.

Part of the problem with meeting AYP last year relates to new graduation and disability standards. For the first time, about 80 percent of all students must get an advanced or standard diploma in four years. Also, standards for disabled students were raised this year. These two factors alone led to 128 schools and 24 schools divisions in Virginia missing AYP. The Prince William County school division missed AYP only because it failed to meet the new disability standards.

To read more about this go to Inside Nova.

One question that arises from these scores is who’s to blame? Are schools underperforming, or are requirements simply too steep?

It’s a hard question to answer.  On the one hand, can anyone be blamed for wanting the highest education standards for students? But on the other hand, not meeting AYP can have serious consequences for schools.

Title I schools – schools receiving federal assistance because of their large low-income student populations – face the toughest consequences.  If they don’t make AYP two years in a row, these schools are labeled as being in “improvement,” a fact schools then have to report to parents. Also, schools in “improvement” must give parents the choice of sending their children to better performing schools.

If a Title I school misses AYP for three years, then the previous requirements remain and schools must also give students Supplemental Education Services.

After four years of missing AYP, in addition to the previous penalties, schools must choose one of the following options: changing some of their staff, coming up with a new curriculum, lessening management’s authority, hiring outside experts to advise them, reorganizing the school internally, or making the school year or day longer.

After five years, planning for school restructuring begins. After six years, those plans are put into effect.

The information about these consequences were found here.

Three Title I elementary schools in Prince William County – Bel Air, River Oaks and Neabsco – missed AYP for the second year in a row, meaning they will have to offer students the choice of transferring.

According to this article from The Virginian-Pilot, the consequences for non-Title I schools are less severe because they don’t receive the same federal funding, but school divisions still must take steps toward improvement if non-Title I schools miss AYP.

While perhaps necessary, the consequences of not making AYP can be costly and may severely change the lives of students and teachers. Of course, in some cases, that is desirable, but if failures result from unrealistic requirements, then the consequences may be too severe.

In the end, the question of whether or not requirements are too onerous might be better left to experts. But parents would do well to educate themselves as to what AYP requirements are, why they are what they are and what the consequences could be to their child if the school they attend does not make Adequate Yearly Progress.

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Helping Students Catch Up

Monday, August 9th, 2010

“No Child Left Behind” is an ambitious project set up under the Bush administration to do exactly what its title implies. Despite that, some students in school systems continue to lag behind. Schools often have their own measures for helping those students. Now, Fairfax County Schools have a new one.

The Fairfax County school system says it can make progress with poorly performing black and Hispanic students, but it needs monetary support from the Fairfax Board of County Supervisors to make it happen.

The school system says it needs $1.3 million dollars to morph programs at some of its schools from something called the Excel program to a newly created “Priority Schools Initiative.” Excel has been in place in 20 Fairfax schools since 1998. It was supposed to help low-income elementary school students improve their grades. But school officials say that many aspects of Excel weren’t working. Rather, other efforts — such as needs-based staffing, which decreases student-teacher ratios at schools with a lot of low-income and beginning English-speaking students — were more effective in helping the schools that were part of the Excel program, school officials say.

So, Excel is basically out and the “Priority Schools Initiative” is in. Rather than focusing on low-income students alone as Excel did, the “Priority Schools Initiative” will look to help poorly performing students no matter how much money their families have. In particular, schools where Black and Hispanic students don’t do as well as their white and Asian peers will be targeted by the new program.

All together, 30 schools —some elementary, some middle — will be part of the “Priority Schools Initiative.” Some of these schools were formerly part of the Excel program, but not all. The plan is to give these 30 schools more resources for at least three years. The school system allocated the $1.3 million dollars so that it could use that cash to move schools previously using Excel to the “Priority Schools Initiative.” The county supervisors have set aside exactly that amount for the schools, assuming school officials are able to show that the money is really needed.

So far, not all the supervisors are convinced.

Read more about the situation at Fairfax Times.

It’s the constant battle of public schools to find a way to reach those students who can’t seem to keep up. Countless hours and dollars have been spent trying to achieve what all teachers’ desire: the effective teaching of every student. As some programs fail to accomplish that task, others must come up to replace them. The only thing that is clear is that doing nothing is not an option.

Towards that end, Fairfax County Schools are making a concerted effort to help students who are often forgotten. Parents and students in Fairfax County schools may have first-hand experience with this. Perhaps some of your children did well under Excel. Perhaps some of them will do better under the “Priority Schools Initiative.” Perhaps not.  Regardless, projects like these two will continue — in Fairfax and across the country — as long as there are students lagging.

Learn more about Fairfax’s new program. Whether you think it will help your child or it’s a waste of money, contact the Board of County Supervisors to let members know what you think about the possibility of them spending this $1.3 million. If you’re a part of the school system, don’t let this opportunity to be heard pass.

Go to http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/government/board/ to find more information on how to contact the supervisors.

Go to http://www.fcps.edu/schlbd/members.htm to find out how to contact your school board members. Ask them to tell you more about the “Priority Schools Initiative.”

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New Education Standards—Here We Come?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Did you know that the 50 states in this country essentially have 50 different curriculums for their K-12 schools? That means that graduating from fifth grade in Virginia doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as graduating fifth grade in Florida. Both states can have entirely different ideas of what children should be expected to learn by the end of those years.

Needless to say, this creates vast discrepancies among school systems in each state.

Fortunately, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are leading a move to unify standards across the country.

Many states have signed on to basically share the same standards for math and English.

Proponents of these “common core standards” say that ensuring students across the country are on the same page educationally would ensure that the U.S. stays competitive internationally. Also, supporters say homogenous standards would prevent some states from performing far below others.

Opponents of the unification say that it will not have the desired effect and will be very costly to states that have to essentially redesign their educational systems.

For an overview of what’s happening with common core standards, you can go to http://www.corestandards.org/.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the argument’s pros and cons.

Why We Should Have Common Educational Standards

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece in April making “The Case for Common Educational Standards.”

The article is written by Craig Barrett, the former CEO of Intel Corp., and co-chair of Achieve, a nonprofit, bipartisan education reform organization. He uses his expertise as a businessman to lend credence to his arguments

“As a former CEO of a Fortune 500 company, I know that common education standards are essential for producing the educated work force America needs to remain globally competitive,” he says.

He goes on to talk about how English and math standards are usually determined without much consideration as to whether those standards are sufficient for what colleges and the work force require. The common standards being developed would help with this problem, he says.

He also notes the wide support for common standards coming from many, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, not to mention some conservative governors. That last part is particularly interesting because, politically speaking, one might typically expect conservatives to be skeptical of embracing what are essentially national standards. That conservative appeal might be helped by the fact that the program is strictly voluntary, as Barrett points out. States can join or not. The federal government is, however, hoping to sweeten the deal with incentives for states that cooperate.

You can’t read the article on the newspaper’s website without a subscription, but it has been posted in its entirety at the link below.  Click here to read more of Barrett’s arguments:

Additionally, a June 1 Washington Post article cites U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who says that the current ensemble of separate standards allows some students to perform well at the state level but more poorly nationally.

Check out these quotes from the article:

“In Mississippi, for instance, 90 percent of fourth-graders passed the state reading exam in 2007, according to U.S. Department of Education data. But only 51 percent had at least “basic” or “partial mastery” on the test known as the Nation’s Report Card.

“In Maryland, 86 percent of fourth-graders passed the reading test, while 69 percent earned a basic score or better on the national test, according to federal data. And in Virginia, about 87 percent of fourth-graders passed the state test, while 74 percent reached at least a basic score on the national exam.”

So, you can see that there appears to be some compelling reasons why states are looking at common standards.

Why We Shouldn’t Have Common Educational Standards

Jump over to a recent article at National Public Radio and you can see some of the arguments against common standards. This piece takes the stance of a myth-busting article, addressing misconceptions on the topic.

The authors take issue with the idea that common standards will increase our international competitiveness.

“The relationship between standards and academic achievement is unclear. While it’s true that many of the countries that outperform the U.S. on international tests have national standards, so do most of the countries that score lower than the U.S.,” the article states.

Additionally, the article states that common standards wouldn’t necessarily help bridge the divide between successful states and their lesser-achieving brethren.

“Some states do have higher standards than others. But the same pressures that drive down state standards would likely plague national standards — and if national standards were defined down, they would undercut states with higher standards, such as Massachusetts,” the article states.

Check out the article for more information about why common educational standards are a bad idea.

The Situation in Virginia

Regardless of your opinion, if you live in the state of Virginia, the situation is basically set. As it stands, the state will not be adopting common standards.

According to a June 3 piece in the Washington Post, Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) is saying that the state standards are good enough and that changing the state’s educational system to fall in line with common standards would require expensive changes.

A Virginia Department of Education spokesman, Charles Pyle, had this to say:

“Virginia’s entire accountability and support system is built on the Standards of Learning. Removing this foundation and replacing it with the common core would disrupt instruction in every school in the commonwealth.”

Perhaps, but William Schmidt, a professor of statistics and education at Michigan State University, says that Virginia’s math standards are not quite up to par with the common standards. Of course, Schmidt helped create those standards, so he might not be the most unbiased observer.

What Do You Think?

Now you have heard some arguments from the so-called experts. But what do you think? Post your comments on this article and start a discussion about the value of common core standards among the states. We want to hear from you.

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