C4T #2

{Comments for Teachers}

David Warlick's Blog: 2 Cents Worth:

Blog Post #1:

The Decline of a Great State:                                      By: David Warlick

In early 2012, Public Policy Polling ran a national survey to determine the favorability of each state in the union. Not surprisingly, Hawaii was number one with 54% of those polled giving it a favorable rating and only 10% an unfavorable. Southern states, North Carolina and south, generally did not fair well in popularity. Exceptions were my state (NC) and Tennessee, both landing among the top ten. All others, except for Florida, were in the bottom half, four of them in the bottom 10.

Later that year a new government took control in North Carolina, Republicans winning 65% of the seats in the General Assembly based on only 52% of the citizens’ votes (see the Best State that Money can Buy).  Since then, this arrogantly conservative body has?

• Denied access to federal emergency unemployment benefits
• Blocked access to federal Affordable Care Act health care benefits
• Increased taxes for low-wage workers
• Lowered taxes for millionaires
• Did away with 5,200 teacher positions and 4,580 teacher assistants
• Canceled salary incentive for educators to become more educated
• Are giving away $10 million in public funds to private schools
• Closed 15 of the state’s 16 abortion clinics
• Suppressed voting rights
• Enacted policies policies that make millionaires more important to candidates and voters less

And the word is out thanks to the New York Times (here and here) and even the Colbert Report, here (starting at 4:10).

On September 5, PPP reported a re-assessment of the states’ favorability and wrote,

North Carolina’s national image has seen a strong shift in a negative direction since that time. Its favorability has dropped from 40% to 30%, while the share of voters with an unfavorable opinion of it has more than doubled from 11% to 23%. Its +7 favorability rating would have ranked it 40th in our national study of state popularity in 2011, rather than its top 10 popularity at that time.

 I fail to see how this points to improved economy, more good jobs, safer and healthier citizens, more tourists or new businesses.

A Summary of My Comments on this post:

l began by introducing myself to Mr. Warlick. I told him that I am a student and gave him links to my class blog as well as my personal blog. I then proceeded to agree with his statements about favorability of state's in the union. I went more in depth by hitting on topics such as unemployment benefits, millionaires taxes being lower than I personally agree with, teachers and their assistants of public schools are being laid-off while private schools are receiving $10 million in public funds, and how I also fail to see how any of these things are improving the economy, businesses, jobs, or even citizens.

Blog Post #2:

[I would like to note that this blog is maintained by three different authors, therefore I had to go back several articles in order to use David Warlick specifically.]

Sir? Would You Mind Taking this Test?                     By: David Warlick

My daughter texted me yesterday morning, wanting to meet at the coffee shop to talk about an article she’d just discovered. She texted me the URL,http://goo.gl/pFc39Z. It’s not a recent article and is actually one of Valerie Strauss‘ (The Answer Sheet) reprints of a blog article [link/pdf], written byMarion Brady (veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author).

The article concerned a forth-term Florida district school board member, a friend of Marion’s, who had taken a version of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) for 10th graders.  After taking the test, the board member called Brady, and this repeatedly re-elected board member, who helps to oversee 22,000 employees and a $3 billion budget and claims to be “able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities,” said that he “hadn’t done well.”

He confessed that he wasn’t confident about any of the 60 math questions, “but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly.”  On the reading test, he got 62% of the questions right.  In an email to Brady, his friend wrote,

It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of (that) life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.

Strauss later identified and interviewed the school board member, and reported on that interview in “Revealed: School Board member who took standardized test.”

My daughter, who is certified to teach elementary grades and high school history, but has given up finding a teaching job (2008 recession followed by recent school staff cuts imposed by our state General Assembly [see]), expressed outrage.  She is currently struggling to score well enough on the GRE to get into the graduate school of her choice.

That Florida school board member’s experience suggests a question that we are still not asking in any substantive way.  We eagerly, actively, and obsessively ask,

“What kind of teaching best practices lead to higher standardized test scores?”

We are not asking,

“How do higher scores on high-stakes standardized tests lead to satisfying, successful and productive lives and a better world?”

Brady says that decisions about how we assess teaching are,

..shaped not by knowledge or understanding of educating, but by ideology, politics, hubris, greed, ignorance, the conventional wisdom, and various combinations thereof. And then they’re sold to the public by the rich and powerful.

How many of us, productive and successful adults, would willingly and confidently take our state’s high-stakes standardized test, especially if our freedom to move forward was based on passing those tests?  

What would our legislative bodies look like, if a requirement for serving elected office was to pass the same tests that they impose on their 15 year old children?

A Summary of My Comments on this post:

l began by introducing myself (again) to Mr. Warlick. I gave the class and my personal blog links. I then proceeded to write: ..."I think it is important to note the School Board Member confessed to not doing well on the test. I personally believe that there are not many Board Members that would actually confess to something like this. Your comment: "We eagerly, actively, and obsessively ask,

“What kind of teaching best practices lead to higher standardized test scores?”

We are not asking,

“How do higher scores on high-stakes standardized tests lead to satisfying, 

successful and productive lives and a better world?”

This comment "hits home" (per say) with me. When I was in High School, I remember teachers, principals, and administrators 'pushing' that we had to score well on the standardized tests due to it being a reflection of the school, and even the county. It was not because it would help us get a better job. It was not because the scores would change the students goals or dreams. It was simply to prove that specific elements were being taught appropriately. 

You ask "What would our legislative bodies look like, if a requirement for serving elected office was to pass the same tests that they impose on their 15 year old children?"

I (unfortunately) do not think there will ever come the day when legislators are forced to take these tests. It amazes me how many different standards the citizens of the United States of America withhold based upon entitlement. There is no way to know, unless a test was given, how many officials would actually pass these standardized tests, but I would argue far more than we would like to admit!