TE 818: Synthesis: Theme 5: Standards, Measurement, and Testing

As I try to pull my thoughts together for this final synthesis, I find myself all over the place. There are so many points that I want to address in each of the three readings. The only thing that saves me is that I referred primarily to Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk for my initial post.

Let's see if I can thread a final thought together here. This summer I was on Royal Baby Watch as many others. My son (gosh, he provides so much good material) was appalled at the spectacle of it all and said on more than one occasion, "You know, we fought a war so that we wouldn't have to care about what happens on the other side of the pond." This comes crashing back to me as I reread through the points made by Apple and Sleeter and Stillman, specifically the latter, in noting that curriculum in reading/language arts and history-social sciences "rests most comfortably on historically dominant groups' perspectives, language, and ways of seeing the world" (Sleeter and Stillman, p. 43). I believe it was in the readings of Theme 4 that there was reference to structuring curriculum way back to the belief of our Founding Fathers. Well, weren't the Founding Fathers fighting to have a country and/or society that was not tied to what was going on in England? We are being corralled to teach a common curriculum based on a specific group's ideals and/or political agendas. I believe these political parties are in a panic. They have taken note of DATA such as those presented in a Bloomberg.com article (link below) that minorities are the majority. The historically majority population wants to make sure to secure their place in history before someone edges them out as they have tried, and continue trying, to do to minorities. Isn't this what led to the American Revolution in the first place?

There is nothing wrong with a national curriculum. There is nothing wrong with a national test. The premise of a national curriculum and national test and the manner in which it is implemented and interpreted is key. Shouldn't education be the cure for politics rather than the platform for it? So I make a full circle to Sir Ken Robinson's statement that "We need a revolution!" (Robinson, TED Talk, 2013).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-13/white-share-of-u-s-population-drops-to-historic-low.html

TE 818: Theme 5: Standards, Measurement, and Testing

I like the way Sir Ken Robinson talks about education and learning being “organic” (Robinson, TED Talk, 2013). I know that to some extent, all teachers in a grade level should strife to “be on the same page” so to speak while teaching throughout the school year. However, with diverse student population, there has to be some wiggle room for lagging behind or moving ahead a day or two compared to your team members. In an ELL classroom in particular, there are days when vocabulary in any of our 5 core subjects is more challenging than others. This idea of organic education is even more interesting when he discusses standardized testing. There is a place for standardized testing, Robinson (2013) says, but it shouldn’t dictate teaching. We recently benchmarked in our district. It is amazing how dependent some teachers are in the results returned via scanned answer documents, rather than reading through the test and hand grading so that they can have a better understanding of what students missed. Better still, begin to determine or try to understand why they chose a particular incorrect answer. I find the incorrect responses to provide more valuable information than the correct ones. We want to be data driven, and I see a place for it, but it is my belief that we can’t fix or improve the data outcome if we don’t know what to tackle. As Apple states, I am not "opposed in principle to the idea or activity of testing," (Apple, p.24). I am realistic in knowing that there will always be some kind of testing accountability. Why, I was a 10th grader in Brownsville, Texas (Hoff, 1999) once upon a time, way before TAAS. I found it interesting that both Hoff (1999) and Sleeter and Stillman (p.32) talked about alignment when it came to standardized testing and textbooks. "Alignment" is certainly a buzz word that I have heard more than once when it comes to textbook adoption and test prep material. I have talked before about being on district textbook adoption committees, and I am currently tagged for our Science textbook adoption (thank goodness because the textbook we have now has been around for over 12 years!). Each textbook company presents their aligned curriculum, but what I realized in the last go-round, and going back to Amanda's Theme 5 introduction post, is that Pearson is the publisher for them all. So. Why put a textbook committee through the process of choosing an aligned textbook if the money is going to the same place no matter which we choose? Hoff also states "that test writers need to do little more than revise off-the-shelf products to satisfy the needs of states" (1999). If the test writers are not completely rewriting their tests, I suppose textbook writers can follow suit. Although I will say, the last two Texas standardized test remakes have been drastically different from the one before.

I believe that a national curriculum and therefore testing could be appropriate in subject areas mathematics and science. Areas with concrete conclusions, although I’m certain some would argue that point about science. Social Studies could stand to be a national curriculum if it were presented fairly across the board, but there are too many variables including home state indoctrination. Does every state do this in the 4th and 7th grades, or is it just Texas? But I have to agree with Apple’s statement that while “…the proponents of a national curriculum may see it as a means to create social cohesion and…to improve our schools by measuring them against “objective” criteria, the effects will be the opposite” (Apple, p.32). I see this happening within our district where we surely have the same curriculum as the other11 elementary schools. Yet, with the socioeconomic differences within our city limits, test results, such as the benchmarking we did last week, come back presenting huge gaps in student achievement "...given existing differences in resources and in class..." (Apple, p.32) between schools. If we see it within a district, it must be amplified ten-fold across the country.

http://www.parentvoicesny.org/?page_id=19

http://thedailycougar.com/2013/10/14/texas-opts-adopting-californias-common-core/

TE 818: Synthesis: Theme 4: Curriculum Creation

I don't know what kind of curriculum I would create. I would hope that as a classroom teacher, I would stay true to KNOWLEDGE rather than to a personal agenda. In anticipation of such an endeavor, I have to admit that I am quite hard-headed and can see myself falling prey to certain behaviors that the state board of education (or certain individuals) exhibit. However, because I do not have strong religious beliefs nor ever vote a straight party ticket, I believe I would be more open-minded about not stream-lining curriculum to a rigid point of view.

But then I take Edward's comments to my original post into consideration. Would having a more open mind make it more difficult for teachers to teach every part of this kind of curriculum. As it is, we have to be creative on how we hit, referring strictly to Texas, the TEKS. Would creating a more "open-minded" curriculum pose still a greater problem for teachers in terms of meeting the required instructional elements?

Tyler discusses filling the gaps in student development (1949, p.8). What, then, do we do in communities where, due to low socioeconomic circumstances, the gap is greater than it would be elsewhere. Does the bigger gap lead to still more delays in meeting the requirements of any state's curriculum? In addition, if we wait for the studies which determine where the gaps are, are we not missing the mark with an entire group of students? By the time the necessary information gets into the hands of a classroom teacher, the students to whom studies may be directly related are gone.

I attended a conference about a month ago where one of the breakout sessions was "student research." My impression was that the results of some study were going to be presented. Instead, the teachers presenting focused on Tier II instruction and discussed how the classroom teacher should research activities and strategies to meet student needs once those needs were determined. It implied more work for a classroom teacher, but the idea was to act now rather than wait around to see what resources became available. "The importance of seeing the implications of the data in the light of acceptable norms cannot be overemphasized because the same items of data permit several possible interpretations (Tyler, 1949, p.14). Herein lies the trick. Where one teacher will put forth great effort in research and implementation another teacher may not even initiate research or not be willing to do the same. A teacher should take more control over the delivery of curriculum in a classroom. This is the person who knows what lies within the confines of their four walls. It seems to go somewhat against the "team work," "work smarter, not harder" mindset, true, but a general collaboration can still exist without glossing over certain skills and concepts because one teacher is trying to keep pace with all the others. Besides, the odds in pacing are bound to even out as "simple" skills and concepts come along which will not take as long to master as others.

I believe there should be more teachers on state curriculum development boards. I can see how this has its own set of problems as teachers are not available for extended periods of time until the summer months, but there really needs to be a strong representation of people who are "in the trenches," present, and accounted for when it comes to curriculum development.

TE 818: Theme 4: Curriculum Creation

I hope I wasn’t supposed to read these articles in sequence, because you know as soon as I saw “Texas,” I went straight to that article. "Can We Please Mess With Texas?" (Shorto, February 2010).

If I address the issue of text book adoption, I have to say it's all a money game. I was on the district text book adoption committee which adopted the most recent reading text book. This must have been in late 2009 and/or early 2010, by the time it was all said and done. All of the materials were TAKS formatted (our recently defunct state test), and 2 years later, after who knows how much money, we have a new test with basically renders the "extras," which are part of the original purchase, useless for those who live and breathe test-teaching. In addition, the state knew that there were new TEKS coming down the pike and a new assessment to boot. If there were so many requests of text book publishers to meet conservative standards, why not have them address the new TEKS as well. By the way, it’s pronounced “tex,” not “teaks.” The “teaks” pronunciation refers to an entirely different program and if you walk into the right conference room, you can get tangled up in a whole pronunciation conversation. 

Shorto cites Frances Fitzgerald and her 1979 book America Revised to say "if there is one thing to be said about American-history textbooks through the ages it is that the narrative of the past is consistently reshaped by present-day forces. America is no longer portrayed as one thing, one people, but rather a hodgepodge of issues and minorities, forces and struggles." It is amazing that there are so many people who want to live with a definition from hundreds of years ago. There have been too many advancements in the world to keep wanting to shove us back into that box.

Shorto also cites Kathy Miller as saying something that I was not perhaps fully aware of: the notion that there are people who are not educators, who do not spend day after day in classrooms, making decisions about curriculum. “It is the most crazy-making thing to sit there and watch a dentist and an insurance salesman rewrite curriculum standards in science and history."  You know, there were real classroom teachers involved in producing those CSCOPE lessons. They were based on the existing TEKS. I can tell you that where the TEKS were specific about what content had to be met, so were the lessons. And I know that I was not asked my religious nor political affiliation before starting work on the project. Were they perfect? No. But neither is any text book curriculum out there. I will say this, and it has been repeated to us on many occasions, the TEKS are the what we teach. How we teach them is an entirely different ball game. And so I pose the question: Why not impose HOTS (higher order thinking skills) questions to enhance the curriculum? After all, the entire purpose of our "new" TEKS, as I understand it, is to ensure college readiness. The direction in which students move is up to them. How does the Christianity-based language of the Constitution apply today? Wouldn’t it be great if students could stop and think about how to shape an entirely new nation? What would they, as founders, include in a declaration of independence or a constitution?

I will cite one more point in Shorto's article. He shares a discussion with Tom Barber about Prentice Hall publishers changing the language of Magruder's American Government to read "enduring Constitution" from "living Constitution." It seems quite interesting at this point that McLeroy is exercising more of a "living Constitution" approach than an "enduring Constitution" when it comes to curriculum.

Shorto's article was written in 2010. Since then, the man he ran against, Thomas Ratcliff, was elected to the State Board of Education. I realize I went off on a particular curriculum and not curriculum in general, and I may have ranted and babbled all at once. Our school district is very much affected by this whole battle, as I suppose most of the state of Texas is. However, I maintain that "up north" school districts have more resources in terms of exposure for their students and can to some extent "fill the gap" that close-mindedness creates. I worry about the development and preparedness of our students as contributing members of society if our schools are tied to certain one-sided ideals, morals, and beliefs. 

The following are new articles, recent articles, about this hot mess. 

I know that CSCOPE does not contain student information.

http://www.texasobserver.org/dan-patrick-thomas-ratliff-slug-cscope/

This talks to the point that educators are capable of making curriculum decisions in the classroom, which emphasizes the comment I made earlier about the TEKS being what we teach, but teachers can still determine how we teach them. 

http://tfninsider.org/2013/10/04/texas-ed-boards-cscope-review-could-lead-to-more-political-warfare-over-instructional-materials/