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The myths of standardized tests
Pundits, politicians, and business leaders continually make claims for what standardized tests can do, and those claims go largely unchallenged because they are in line with popular assumptions about what these tests can do, what the scores mean, and the psychology of human motivation. But what most of what these opinion leaders say-and the public believes-about standardized testing just isn't so. However, few members of the general public, not even concerned parents, have the time or the background to keep up with the latest findings of testing experts, psychometricians, and researchers. That's where The Myths of Standardized Tests comes in. In simple, accessible language, Harris, Smith, and Harris spell out the assumptions underlying standardized tests and point out what's true about them and what's just plain mythical. But they not only debunk common assumptions; they propose better ways to judge the success of our schools. They also offer readers suggestions for ways they can help reduce the burden of tests on their children. Appendixes offer readers contact information and suggestions for actions they can take to become part of the solution to the problem of overusing and misusing standardized tests.
eBook
Through a Glass Backward
From preschool, to teacher preparation, to school choice, to education for the gifted and talented, the idea of a better-articulated, better-integrated education system has profound implications.
Journal Article
Ready or Not
Last month in this space I pointed readers toward William Bushaw's article reporting the views of middleschoolers, who almost universally aspire to join those sleepy-headed throngs in those too-warm halls of academe. [...]many students are already changing that picture: they delay college, transfer from community colleges to fouryear institutions, move between institutions, stop and start their education more than once, or attend part time while working full time. Wilensky, a high school principal herself, puts forth the view that \"colleges and universities are a major part of the educational problem we need to solve.\" Because the requirements for gaining admission to selective colleges dictate the curriculum in most high schools, we need to include the reform of higher education in any plan to reform K-12 schools. [...]in a few places, that is what's happening, according to Kevin Carey, research and policy manager for Education sector.
Journal Article
Building Bridges
Whether it's university professors citing published research as if it should be eminently clear what practitioners are to do with it or whether it's the hottest new leadership guru selling a theory-based, research-supported brand of School Fix Elixir (maybe I should trademark this name?), the potential tor improving real schools melts away as proposed innovations rail to take account or local conditions. Things like the income level and language background of the families in a school community; the qualifications, experience, anil stress levels of the teaching staff in a school; the financial troubles and local political landmines confronting a superintendent, all of these matter when the findings of research come to a school near you.
Journal Article
A Do-It-Yourself Club
Indeed, our understanding of literacy has evolved: from the simple capacity to sign one's name, to the ability to read at least a few Biblical passages, to the simplest kind of \"readin', writin', and cypherin \" familiar to both Jethro Clampett and my 19th-century-born West Virginia granny, to today's broader definitions that branch out to include at least some skill in math and minimal comfort with computer technology. Whether students read to answer questions that are important to them in subsequent discussions and writing, as Mike Schnioker recommends in the lead article; whether they are allowed to have real input into their choice of reading material, even in a standards-driven world, as Douglas Fisher and Gay Ivey suggest; or whether they have an interested adult outside the school with whom they can exchange written responses to their reading, as William Ieale and his colleagues advise - students need good reasons to want to he members of what Frank Smith has called the \"literacy club.\"
Journal Article
Work to Do at Home
To get an idea of just how much \"attention\" the Kappan had given to the issue of Indian education - construed as widely as possible - I searched the online archives and found a total of 24 \"hits\" for the terms Native American or Indian, dating back to 1971. [...]as a truly global economy and infosphere begins to take shape, the nations of the world must not forget to look within, to confront the problem of helping to integrate the world's indigenous peoples into the technology-driven world of the 21st century. [...]helping\" is the pivotal term, for bringing all peoples into an amazing new era - without homogenizing everyone by forcing people to abandon traditions that have endured for centuries - must be a project jointly undertaken by both indigenous and mainstream civilizations. According to James Loewen, in the conversation Mike Jetty presents in this issue, \"What's happening in Montana with Indian Education for All really can change how we view history and how we project ourselves into the future.\"
Journal Article
The Pedagogy of Poverty
Smith recounts that Martin Haberman's Dec 1991 article, \"The Pedagogy of Poverty\" is one of the most widely circulated Kappan articles of the past 14 years, which chillingly laid out the features of the kind of attenuated version of education that was then being served up to poor urban children. He points out that the central characteristic of the pedagogy of poverty was constant teacher direction and sudden compliance.
Journal Article