Are the hours kids and teenagers spend prowling the Web a threat to literacy? Or is it simply a new form of reading and writing? A sprawling New York Times thumbsucker notes that “as teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.”
Clearly when kids go online instead of turning on the TV, they read and write instead of passively consuming video. But critics of reading on the Internet say they see no evidence that increased Web activity improves reading achievement. “What we are losing in this country and presumably around the world is the sustained, focused, linear attention developed by reading,” Dana Gioia, the chairman of the N.E.A., tells the Times. “I would believe people who tell me that the Internet develops reading if I did not see such a universal decline in reading ability and reading comprehension on virtually all tests.”
“Reading a book, and taking the time to ruminate and make inferences and engage the imaginational processing, is more cognitively enriching, without doubt, than the short little bits that you might get if you’re into the 30-second digital mode,” adds Ken Pugh, a cognitive neuroscientist at Yale who has studied brain scans of children reading.
According to the paper, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers reading, math and science tests to a sample of 15-year-old students in more than 50 countries, will add an electronic reading component to next year’s tests. The United States, among other countries, will not participate. “A spokeswoman for the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the Department of Education, said an additional test would overburden schools,” the Times notes.
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The principal of Rocky River Middle School in Ohio is sorry.
His school made AYP, earned an “excellent” rating from the state, and passed the 2008 Ohio Achievement. But principal David Root gave Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Regina Brett a remarkable two-page, single-spaced apology, addressed to students, staff and citizens of Rocky River, detailing the cost of those accomplishments. Among the things Root is sorry for:
- That he spent thousands of tax dollars on test materials, practice tests, postage and costs for test administration.
- That his teachers spent less time teaching American history because most of the social studies test questions are about foreign countries.
- That he didn’t suspend a student for assaulting another because that student would have missed valuable test days.
- For pulling children away from art, music and gym, classes they love, so they could take test-taking strategies.
- That he has to give a test where he can’t clarify any questions, make any comments to help in understanding or share the results so students can actually learn from their mistakes.
- That the integrity of his teachers is publicly tied to one test.
- For making decisions on assemblies, field trips and musical performances based on how that time away from reading, math, social studies and writing will impact state test results.
- For arranging for some students to be labeled “at risk” in front of their peers and put in small groups so the school would have a better chance of passing tests.
- For making his focus as a principal no longer helping his staff teach students but helping them teach test indicators.
“We don’t teach kids anymore,” Root, a 24-year veteran principal, tells the paper. “We teach test-taking skills. We all teach to the test. I long for the days when we used to teach kids.”
Some Texas schools and districts have raised their academic rankings without actually improving student scores on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, according to the Dallas Morning News, which files a terrific piece of reporting on the problem.
For example, TAKS reading scores slipped this year at Medrano Elementary School in Dallas. But under a new procedure granted by the Texas Education Agency, Dallas school officials expect Medrano to rise from “acceptable” to the more impressive “recognized” when 2008 rankings come out in August….Critics say this bureaucratic sleight-of-hand can make schools look good on paper when many students still need help. Why, those critics ask, would school leaders strive to improve learning when they can use automatic loopholes as a means to elevate or maintain their ratings?
The paper quotes a Dallas associate superintendent who says, “There are so many measures in an urban district that we have to deal with. When a school gets rated lower because of one group, that is really demoralizing. It condemns the whole school because of one group.”
Am I missing something here? Isn’t the entire point of accountability to guarantee good outcomes for every group of students? Say what you will about NCLB, but redefining failure as success is most certainly not the way to go, as Ed Trust’s Daria Hall points out.
It’s this whole set of decisions that are being made in the interest of adults and not kids. It’s to make schools look better than they are, rather than confronting the fact that far too few students are doing reading or math or science at the level they should be.
The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards should consider student-learning gains when deciding which teachers deserve national certification, a team of researchers says in an interesting study reported in Education Week.
Students who are taught by teachers certified by the board outperform students whose teachers lack such certification on standardized tests, according to a study released last month. Now, researchers from Harvard, Dartmouth and the Los Angeles Unified School District “make a case for combining the current measures with newer, ‘value added’ calculations that take into account the test-score gains that students make in applicants’ classes, or at least lending more weight in the assessment process to the individual tests that link most closely to improved student achievement,” says EdWeek.
For some reason, the teacher-effectiveness debate is broken into two camps, says Thomas J. Kane, a study author and a professor of education and economics at Harvard’s graduate school of education. One side focuses on students’ achievement, and then there’s another side that focuses primarily on measures of teacher practice. We think the reasonable approach is not either, but both.
To its credit, the research was one of 22 research efforts commissioned by NBPTS to gauge the effectiveness of its process. The results are apparently non-binding on NBPTS; they’re not obligated to adopt the value-added recommendation. But one wonders if the fact that the report is being discussed in EdWeek before it’s release isn’t tantamount to a trial balloon of sorts.
I’m all about committed parenting, academic rigor and student achievement so why does it feel excessive to me that children as young as four are being tutored to get ahead in school? The Houston Chronicle reports some parents are hiring tutors, “because they’re feeling the pressure of looming high-stakes tests, which begins in Texas with the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills for third-grade children. Others are thinking about college.”
Houston-area tutors work with hundreds of young children on phonics, numbers, colors, study skills and fine motor skills. Some take children as young as 3 1/2 . But some caution that putting pressure on young children might give them a distaste for school. Rather than spending upward of $45 an hour on private tutors, they say parents should use outings to stores, libraries and museums as teaching moments.
“A child needs summer,” Kay Hall, director of the Early Learning Academy in the Spring school district tells the paper. ”There’s a lot of learning that can take place over the summer, but it doesn’t need to be in a classroom in a structured environment.”
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