2/3 of Wisconsin ps 8th graders can't read proficiently

[Perry]

And although I respect that, it is truly not the same thing. Class size does make a difference in the depth and breadth of study as well as the ability of the teacher to engage students on multiple levels. In a class of 35 you are much less likely to build a model than to examine a worksheet of a model. The student who learns well with a worksheet does great, while the student who is a kinesthetic learner falls behind. Just an example.

 

You would be hard-pressed to find an actual educator who says class size doesn't matter, on many different levels, not just when it comes to standardized test scores (which don't measure much of anything except the ability to take a test).

Public policy shouldn't be determined by opinion and anecdote. It should be based on data and evidence. The evidence is clear that class size reduction does not necessarily result in better outcomes. We should be implementing the things that have been shown to work. When that happens, then drop those class sizes all you want.

[HoneyFernDotOrg]

Well, actually, that is offensive. Comparing people to animals is almost always offensive.

 

Some of my favorite people are animals. I don't mean it badly.

 

And I have taught with teachers who are illiterate (or who simly appear that way). I was being hyperbolic. If I have 60 students who are used to respecting authority and lined up in rows, of course I can teach. This is the college model of lecture (with 500 students in a class). In my last school I had a class with 25 kids, and their brekadown was something like this:

 

15 gifted (5 of them highly gifted; 8 of them dual-diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, Asperger's or Tourette's. Not all of those 8 medicated, which is fine, but complex)

5 in the middle (2 of the 5 EBD)

5 at the lower end of the spectrum, several grades below (reading).

 

Of the 25, 14 were from lower SES families and 7 of the families overall were divorced. One student had a brother who recently died of unnatural consequences (gang), another had a parent who had recently killed herself. Two of these kids had a parent deployed in Iraq, and for six months, one student had both parents deployed in Iraq.

 

Of the 25, 6 kids had been in more than three schools from K-5.

 

This paints a picture of a public school classroom (this was a magnet program; most classrooms have more in the middle and at the lower end of the spectrum). Add another 10 students to this classroom and tell me how that would work. Not pretty.

 

Arguments that class size doesn't matter do not consider that a teacher might actually want to serve all of the kids in the classroom according to their ability; class size doesn't matter if you aim squarely at the middle and hope the splatter catches the ends. I don't teach that way.

[Julie in Austin]

Home schoolers achieve much higher performance indicators (on average) while spending 1/10 the $$ (on average), and in nearly all cases, with virtually no training, licensing or certifications.

 

Total threadjack, I know, but I find this kind of statement to be somewhat unfair in that it ignores the very real cost of lost wages of the homeschooling parent. . . . even though I would only be teaching school, it is still costing us something like 12K/year/student in my lost wages to homeschool our kids.

[HoneyFernDotOrg]

Public policy shouldn't be determined by opinion and anecdote. It should be based on data and evidence. The evidence is clear that class size reduction does not necessarily result in better outcomes. We should be implementing the things that have been shown to work. When that happens, then drop those class sizes all you want.

 

What studies are you quoting?

 

Do you have a dog in the fight? Are your kids in public school?

[Julie in Austin]

Just curious, but have you ever taught in school?

 

I have, and my personal experience agrees with the research: class size cuts don't make any difference in student outcomes until you get to the 12-15 kids/class range.

 

(Not to say they don't make a difference in teacher sanity, but that isn't what we were talking about. :D)

[lionfamily1999]

They need more money...

I'm friends with a teacher that wants raises constantly. He was so uncaring about base closings (local), but acts as though his quality of work relies upon his paycheck. Ask him if he'll do a better job with more money and he gets offended. Ask him if he'll not do as good a job with less money and he gets offended. At the same time, he wants to strike to show solidarity...

 

They really do care about our kids......... as long as their paychecks make it worth while.

[lionfamily1999]

I have, and my personal experience agrees with the research: class size cuts don't make any difference in student outcomes until you get to the 12-15 kids/class range.

 

(Not to say they don't make a difference in teacher sanity, but that isn't what we were talking about. :D)

That makes sense though. Once you get out of that range the size is unworkable. It's just too many kids. My mom says that with parents, once you get past three children it just doesn't matter how many you have. Granted, she didn't do a study and it's her opinion, but she says that four kids/forty kids make about the same amount of ruckus. :lol:

[justasque]

...but I think a reasonable question is, are the citizens and taxpayers getting what they are paying for? ... Home schoolers achieve much higher performance indicators (on average) while spending 1/10 the $$ (on average), and in nearly all cases, with virtually no training, licensing or certifications.

 

This may be true, if you consider the teacher/mom's time is worth zero. I don't think this is a fair way to compare; my time has worth, and it should be included when looking at the cost of my child's education. My family has decided to forgo my income in order for me to spend my time educating my kids - that's a "cost", in my book.

 

I also have mixed feelings about the idea that homeschooling moms have no training. In fact, many of us (not me) have some kind of educational/teacher background. Those of us who don't (as well as those who do), spend a significant amount of time studying education/teaching, whether reading about it, going to conferences, networking with other teachers (homeschool and/or professional), and gaining hands-on experience. We might know very little when starting out, but after we have quite a few years and a few kids under our belt, we've come a long way. So while we don't have formal training, many of us have significant knowledge and experience which shouldn't be discounted.

 

In addition, those of us who don't have a background in teaching often have subject-matter background. I can think of homeschooling moms I know who have good educations in architecture, engineering, biology, accounting, medical fields, and so on. Even the moms I know who have GED's have done a significant amount of self-education through literature, etc. It's certainly not required to have such a background in order to homeschool, but nonetheless many of us do have it. When we co-op, our kids are getting their math and science education from scientists and engineers and computer scientists and nurses, their liberal arts from writers and artists and musicians, and so on, which is quite a bit different than the typical public school.

 

So that whole "just a mom, works for free" thing is a little misleading.

[Barry Goldwater]

Total threadjack, I know, but I find this kind of statement to be somewhat unfair in that it ignores the very real cost of lost wages of the homeschooling parent. . . . even though I would only be teaching school, it is still costing us something like 12K/year/student in my lost wages to homeschool our kids.

 

That's classified as an opportunity cost, and is worth considering.

 

I'd give you that, esp. since my DW made a NICE wage before we had kids,

 

IF

 

You'll let me add to the cost of public school the lifetime of un-earnable wages (or profits from a business venture) because the dear child can't read, write, or do basic math...THEN the cost of public school becomes EVEN MORE ASTRONOMICAL...

 

Just food for thought...

[lionfamily1999]

So that whole "just a mom, works for free" thing is a little misleading.

and a teensy bit demeaning ;)

[tex-mex]

Remember that the group of kids who take the ACT/SAT is a smaller and not random subset of the group of kids who go to public school for 8th grade. As a broad generalization, the kids who are not reading well in 8th grade are probably not college-bound, thus unlikely to be in the ACT/SAT subset.

:iagree: Most likely the testing is a very common benchmark like in all states with 4th, 8th, and 12th grades pulling in basic skills as a statistic. I know back when I taught in CA this was done long before NCLB.

Edited February 22, 2011 by tex-mex

[Rosie_0801]

Is there another way to do it, in the PS system we have now? I know that as HSers we can evaluate knowledge/mastery in a variety of ways, test scores being just one...but that's what PS schools use, that's what private schools use, that's what colleges use. It should be a focus, but I agree, it doesn't have to be THE ONLY focus.

 

Could it be that all this testing is a crutch to prop up teachers/policy makers who don't know enough about what they're doing to be able to evaluate kids' work using anything other than "uh, that's not what the answer in the back of the book says."

 

I know if I had to start teaching my kids maths today, that's what I'd be doing because I was taught maths in a "plug numbers into algorithm" way and haven't begun re-educating yet. It wouldn't surprise me if most school teachers are the same. After all, they got pretty much the same education I did. Luckily for me, I hang out on a homeschooling board and now know better in theory, so I will be able to do something about the practice.

 

One thing that's really disturbing me about the growing attention on education reform is the blame being placed on teachers. Many districts mandate...

 

What teachers can teach.

When they can teach.

How they can teach.

 

They're being prevented from instructing to the best of their abilities by district micromanagement and weak curricula, among other things. This, of course, makes it completely unfair to blame teachers for students' poor performance.

 

Ha, yeah that too. When my hubby was teaching, it irritated him how veteran teachers who constantly got good results were being hauled over the coals for not using enough technology in the classroom. Another problem was expecting graduates like him to teach as though they had 15 years experience already. If you want new teachers to have 15 years experience, make it easier for professionals to become teachers. Why even bother with teaching diplomas for them? Surely a working with children check is enough?

 

I wholeheartedly agree, but why aren't we seeing a rebellion from the teachers about this? With very rare exceptions, my kids' teachers all defended and fully supported the crappy curricula.

 

Because they had a lousy education and don't know better? Let's assume Liping Ma was right when she said the bottom third of a class become teachers. Let's also assume that education used to be great. The bottom third of great is not so great. Not-so-great become teachers and teach their best, which happens to be not so great. The bottom third of not so great is pretty crappy. Pretty-crappy become teachers and teach pretty crappily. The bottom third of pretty crappy is "so bad that people will start homeschooling." The bottom third of "So Bad That People Will Start Homeschooling" is what? And I'm not sure policy makers come from the top third of any class either.

 

Interestingly, my group of children of previously homeless moms allowed a fairly high student to teacher ratio once they got used to me and realized they were learning! I had one girl there who kept the others in line, she wanted to learn so badly!!

 

Wow. That must be really rewarding work :)

 

Rosie

[Heather in WI]

I wish this article hadn't tied these two issues together. I have strong opinions on both issues, but I think that is a big mistake.

 

The first thing that must be noted is that WI has the HIGHEST gap of achievement between black and white students in the country. Someone asked why our college entrance exams (statewide) can be so high -- the answer is that those are white students outside of Milwaukee county.

 

What has happened in the Milwaukee Public school system is a travesty. It has been going on for years and years ... it's not one single politician's or teacher's fault. As evidenced by:

 

Sept, 2007: Reading gap is nation's worst: Average ability of state's black students ranks lowest

 

April, 2008: State black 8th-graders rank worst in nation in writing

 

Oct, 2009: Wisconsin math test scores high, but racial gap is among widest

 

March, 2010: State's black fourth-graders post worst reading scores in U.S.

 

Jan, 2011: Science literacy gap wide in state: Difference in scores between black, white eighth-graders is highest in U.S.

 

I could go on and on. Our education system is why we decided to homeschool. I spent more than 8 years writing politicians and newspaper reporters on this issue. No one cares. It's completely depressing.

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

Heather, thank you for that info. I can understand better now, because we have the exact same paradigm here in Indianapolis.

 

Indianapolis Public Schools and most of the township schools are among the worst in the nation. Drive half an hour in any direction and find some of the best schools in the state. (You'll see the condition of shops, houses, parks and roads dramatically improve as you drive that half hour, too.)

 

Of course, half an hour away isn't all that far these days. Kids from good and bad schools know each other. The kids at church include some near-illiterate and life-hardened IPS students, rough-and-tumble township kids from very poor schools (our neighbors), college prep students from expensive private schools, decently educated suburban kids who may or may not go to community or state colleges when they graduate, and homeschoolers.

 

One can't help but be very concerned about public education, even if one is homeschooling, when one is surrounded by every face of the problem all the time.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Dulcimeramy

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

Heather, I just glanced at some of your links. Very, very similar to the IPS situation.

 

:(

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

YES. THIS.

Teachers have mortgages to pay, prescriptions to fill, kids to insure. In the public school systems in which I've taught, the actually TEACHERS have very little say in what curriculum is purchased, philosophy is bought into, and materials are used. In fact, just as many doctors will prescribe medications produced by manufacturers in which they own stock, many Curriculum Coordinators have monetary incentives to use certain curricula.

 

OH. And NCLB too. :001_huh:

 

astrid

 

:iagree:Many school boards have chosen lousy curricula from what I understand:(.

[MSNative]

 

Do you have a dog in the fight? Are your kids in public school?

 

Society in general has a dog in this fight. Even people without children are still expected to pay taxes to fund ps because having an educated populace is a public good. (That is the argument that has been made. Not here to debate that premise.) So, although I do not choose to put my kids in ps, I pay to fund ps and I have a societal stake in the state of our education. Now, I'm happy to completely bow out of any ps debate in return for no longer having to fund a failing system that I don't use. However, since that is unlikely to happen, I think it is entirely fair for all citizens to have a voice in this debate, not just ps parents.

[kalphs]

according to this article from CNS News. Can we talk about this?

 

A major point of the article is the opinion that teachers have no business striking for anything when the children are failing to learn.

 

That's a hot topic and I'm not up for it today, but I would like to talk about the failure of public schools. How many kids have to emerge from public school as illiterates before we declare the whole system a failure? What is the magic number?

 

And what are our options for the future?

Our family resides in the Badger state.

The schools in the geograhpical area where we live are in sad shape.

The last time I checked the DPI site the school system has the lowest test scores in the state.

I have a number of friends who are teachers in the public schools.

They have commented the schools are basically "daycares" and the teachers are considered "babysitters".

Trying to keep order in the classroom takes up majority of their day/time.

Academics are thrown by the wayside, as they attempt to maintain order in the classroom and discipline without corporal punishment.

From listening to my friends talk, the main problem stems from the home life of the students and the fact the teachers are not allowed to discipline the students like back in the "good old days".

By the way Walden Media released a movie on the topic of the failure of the public school system called "Waiting for Superman."

Dh's coworker saw it and said it was excellant.

:)

Edited February 23, 2011 by kalphs

[Guest Dulcimeramy]

I've got Waiting for Superman reserved on Netflix. I heard it was good, too.

[ElizabethB]

Wow. That must be really rewarding work :)

 

 

Yes, it is very rewarding!

 

Of course, I wish that the schools were not making such rewarding work, I'd really rather they were just taught to read correctly in the first place. Then, I could move on to math tutoring. :D

[ElizabethB]

What is literacy?

 

There used to be a simple definition, from Webster's 1828 dictionary (which only has the root literate)

 

LIT'ERATE, a. [L. literatus.] Learned; lettered; instructed in learning and science.

 

And, if you read about the history of reading, when they taught with spellers, it was considered not even worth mentioning and not worth talking about, people mentioned learning to read only in passing and then talked about the rest of education.

 

There used to be only reading and not reading, not degrees of literacy. People were taught with Spellers, learning to read and spell around 6,000 words divided into syllables, at which point they could read and spell anything and then were given the Psalms to read. (And, at this time, either the KJV or Geneva Bible, both written at about the 12th grade level.) In the late 1800's, students were given syllable divided books to read for a bit before they tackled regular material. If you want the full history of this, I highly recommend Geraldine E. Rodgers' "The History of Beginning Reading," I like the Author House version because it's cheaper and easier to quote.

 

Are the tests a measure of literacy?

 

They are correlated. Since they are multiple choice questions based on reading passages, there is also an element of IQ involved. And, people who can read the most common 1,000 words but not sound out words well will be able to guess through most of these questions fairly well, depending on their guessing abilities and inference skills.

 

A better correlation is a spelling test, actually! A small percentage of people read well but cannot spell well, but there are hardly any people who spell well who cannot read well. I have copies of IOWA spelling scale tests from the 1900s and one from 1950, on average, there was about a drop of 2 grade levels from 1900 to 1950.

 

The best reading test is an oral reading test of material that is not saturated with sight words, or reading a list of words. (If you want to assess pure reading skill, that is.)

 

What percentage of people were literate in America's past?

 

 

If you go back to when reading was taught with syllables, the percentages of people taught to read who were literate was very high, most likely 95 to 99%. In different periods, different people were not taught to read for various reasons. (Females, minority groups, low income groups, etc.)

 

There was a period of whole word teaching from 1826 to 1876 where literacy was also very low.

 

In his book "One Room Schools of the Middle West," Robert Fuller states:

 

It was surely more that coincidental that as the number of Midwestern one-room schools soared, the area’s illiteracy rate declined. In 1890, the people of the Midwest (North Central Division) eclipsed the North Atlantic Division to become the most literate in the nation. It was a position they held at least until 1930, when illiteracy rates were dropped with the census.

 

Perhaps it was significant, too, that in 1900 the rural states of Nebraska and Iowa (the latter with the most one-room schools in the nation after Illinois) had the highest percentages of literate people ten years of age and older. Kansas, with a majority of its children in one-room schools, followed close behind.

 

Here is a Google book, "The New international year book: a compendium of the world's progress," with some illiteracy rates from 1900 and 1910 from the census:

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=b6AYAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA321&lpg=PA321&dq=kansas+literacy+1900&source=bl&ots=ZzDxmNBRRe&sig=5hJul15wcIsnkfvEa9mGkHANhEY&hl=en&ei=tKlkTY27CYO8lQfV39TTBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=kansas%20literacy%201900&f=false

 

There are several possible reasons for this:

 

local control and interest from parents

 

ability of older students to get extra practice learning to read without stigma of being held back

 

one-room schools more likely to use Spellers, phonics, and other "old-fashioned" methods than whole word methods or the sentence method (the sentence method is, basically, the whole word method except students memorized whole sentences at a time instead of whole words, a form of whole word teaching from the late 1800's and early 1900's)

Edited February 23, 2011 by ElizabethB

[BabyBre]

I've got Waiting for Superman reserved on Netflix. I heard it was good, too.

 

As an education advocate, it was good, but I thought it really missed the mark. It's primarily an arguement for charter schools, but doesn't address many, many other things that are causing failing schools.

 

Better is The Cartel, which focuses on corruption in the teachers' union (specifically New Jersey), which leads into the real reasons many districts aren't supportive of school choice and competition. It does a much better job, on the whole.

 

I recommend this book to fill in some blanks: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1610480457/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=03AG2BK29DS54TJZQ1FX&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

[Dmmetler]

Well, actually, that is offensive. Comparing people to animals is almost always offensive.

 

Here is something that my cousin-in-law, a ps teacher, said on FB the other day: Anyone can teach in a classroom with good parental support.

 

Not so.

 

A teacher who is uneducated in the intricacies of math and grammar cannot teach anyone math or grammar. An illiterate teacher can't teach people to read!

 

If you doubt the existence of illiterate teachers, check any teacher's forum.

 

Teachers need decent curriculum, tools for discipline, and parental support, but they can't produce literate students if they are not proficient themselves.

 

Then how can a homeschooler, who doesn't know Latin, teach Latin? One of the things I've seen in basically every homeschool resource I've read is that, no, it's not necessary to have a full proficiency at every subject you teach in your homeschool, provided that you select and use good resources and are willing to work at learning it with your child.

 

Obviously, if you're hiring, you don't want to hire someone who isn't proficient in the skills they're teaching, but since my DD decided she wanted to learn Latin and Greek, I'm not even fully proficient at everything she's learning in 1st grade, let alone K-12. I'd say I'm at a middling level in Latin, and I know about as much Greek as she does!

[6packofun]

Great thoughts here, Rosie.

[Stacy in NJ]

make up one part of it. Others relate to culture, immigration, and race. We've been so dishonest for so long that it's terribly difficult to discuss these issues without spinning off into unhelpful territory.

 

The most beneficial characteristic of the school choice movement is that it allows these issues to be addressed at a local level by individuals intimately familar to the problems.

 

Teachers' unions have fought tooth and nail to prevent the kind of changes necessary to improve the system.

[Jennifer3141]

Now I've got to hunt down the Cartel on Netflix. I'm waiting for Superman literally on there. :D

[Stacy in NJ]

As an education advocate, it was good, but I thought it really missed the mark. It's primarily an arguement for charter schools, but doesn't address many, many other things that are causing failing schools.

 

Better is The Cartel, which focuses on corruption in the teachers' union (specifically New Jersey), which leads into the real reasons many districts aren't supportive of school choice and competition. It does a much better job, on the whole.

 

I recommend this book to fill in some blanks: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1610480457/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=03AG2BK29DS54TJZQ1FX&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

 

:tongue_smilie:

[Stacy in NJ]

Now I've got to hunt down the Cartel on Netflix. I'm waiting for Superman literally on there. :D

 

http://www.thecartelmovie.com/

 

I'm a Jersey resident and most of this movie focuses on Jersey, so it's near and dear to my heart.:001_wub:

[Stacy in NJ]

In our affluent leafy burbs of NYC the schools are excellent, mostly white, and comparable to good private schools. Our inner city schools in Newark, Camden, Tenton are a travesty. The exception to that rule are the charters in those disadvanted areas doing a wonderful job. People need to think about and understand the performance gap the exist throughout most of the USA. It effects all aspects of education in America not just Wisconsin or Jersey.

 

I wish this article hadn't tied these two issues together. I have strong opinions on both issues, but I think that is a big mistake.

 

The first thing that must be noted is that WI has the HIGHEST gap of achievement between black and white students in the country. Someone asked why our college entrance exams (statewide) can be so high -- the answer is that those are white students outside of Milwaukee county.

 

What has happened in the Milwaukee Public school system is a travesty. It has been going on for years and years ... it's not one single politician's or teacher's fault. As evidenced by:

 

Sept, 2007: Reading gap is nation's worst: Average ability of state's black students ranks lowest

 

April, 2008: State black 8th-graders rank worst in nation in writing

 

Oct, 2009: Wisconsin math test scores high, but racial gap is among widest

 

March, 2010: State's black fourth-graders post worst reading scores in U.S.

 

Jan, 2011: Science literacy gap wide in state: Difference in scores between black, white eighth-graders is highest in U.S.

 

I could go on and on. Our education system is why we decided to homeschool. I spent more than 8 years writing politicians and newspaper reporters on this issue. No one cares. It's completely depressing.

[kalanamak]

make up one part of it.

 

For the last seven years I've worked in a "union shop" and IME, a very small percentage of people are involved with the union. The vast majority of people show up, do their job, and go home. I think that one (people in general, not you specifically) needs to make sure "teachers" don't feel attacked and hated when "the teacher's union" should be the target.

 

My tiny union had to hire a lawyer and get ugly to get out of the "big" union, which got our dues very happily, and we saw nothing for it (if they did something for us, it was a well-kept secret). Now, my tiny union (less than 200 people) keeps a cushion for when we need an attorney to look over the contract, and anything above that is handed back to us annually. What we have spent most of our money on was getting out of the old union. So, when I hear "unions" vilified, I see my co-workers hackles rise, even though they bash it as well. I wish unions could be more ad hoc, and rise up on an issue by issue basis. (And where I work, it isn't the union that shelters the bad employees, its HR, who is afraid of lawsuits from individuals. We have a terrible track record of losing lawsuits. I recently read the details of one on line. I am not sure how a person who stayed 14 years at a bottom-rung position with a string of bad evals and carrying on a well known affair with a married super could then win so much money claiming he "made" her sleep with his wife and "repeatedly" defecated on her in his office .... I mean this LITERALLY ... or else she would lose her job. Of course, she didn't sue him, she sued our deep-pocket employer.)