Standard Fare won't provide a First Class education

What trends do you see in the future of standardized testing? Is the emphasis on standardized testing likely to increase or decrease in the next decade? Why do you think so?

First of all, there is a very big difference between what I actually see and what I want to see in the future of standardized testing. It is going to take tidal waves before anyone proposes a much needed change to the status quo. Even when those waves come there won't be immediate change. For months (maybe even years) politicians and businessmen will place the blame on someone else (probably educators). When a solution is finally drafted, I hope that it will redefine the meaning of success from passing tests to having the ability to succeed in life.

Education on almost every level is so tied up in bureaucracy that nobody is getting the education they deserve. The biggest culprit is high stakes standardized testing. Students don't always perform well under pressure and it is simply unfair to attach pay increases or even job retention to test scores that are ultimately a product of chance. It has been scientifically proven that stress can hinder the ability of the human brain to learn and recall information (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661306000453 -- This study says that only stress in the appropriate context can facilitate learning. In other words, pressure to do well on a test in April isn't going to help a student learn material any time of the year.). Placing both students and teachers under an entire year's worth of stress preparing for tests just isn't logical if you want to see positive results. Unfortunately as more and more people clamor for accountability in the classroom it is unlikely that teachers or students will have a break from standardized testing anytime soon.

Furthermore, by demanding that each and every student fit the exact same mold we are creating a generation of students without strengths and weaknesses... or creativity. Over and over in recent years employers have said that our schools are producing workers without enough creativity (http://articles.cnn.com/2009-11-03/opinion/robinson.schools.stifle.creativity_1_talk-college-degrees-education?_s=PM:OPINION -- an article by Ken Robinson who gave a TED talk in June 2006 about how schools are actually killing creativity... the TED talk itself has been viewed over 8 million times and I'd invite you to check it out when you have about 20 minutes to spare). A society needs a workforce with a wide variety of skills. Working so hard to make sure everyone is the same is eventually going to backfire.

When the next wave of education reform takes place I would like to see teachers given the appropriate tools to provide a quality education. A test should be used as a diagnostic tool rather than a death sentence. Teachers could then use the test data to identify struggling students and give them exactly the attention they need in the areas they need it most. Likewise, test data should also be useful for identifying teaching strategies and lessons that should be reused, reworked, or replaced. Appropriate test data could also be used to coordinated teaching between schools. If students at one school achieve super high in one area, the surrounding schools should have the benefit of learning how that school is teaching that particular subject. By reviewing scores in all of these ways, teachers can be accountable to themselves and each other rather than testing companies or the government.

I also think students would benefit if standards were skewed to favor the skills and knowledge for which students have a passion. For example, many current tests expect a passing grade on every section for a student to be considered passing overall. What if instead of decent grades on every section a really good grade on one section was weighted in such a way that it made up for deficiencies on another section? Grading in this way would benefit students who are non-native English speakers, are on the verge of dropping out of school, and/or simply cannot get a handle on a subject that is particularly difficult.

There really is no ideal solution to the problems presented by standardized tests, but hopefully the best solution will be found soon. One thing that is for certain is standardized testing isn't going away anytime soon.

Future Blog Ideas:

• Making school compulsory through high school (as heard in the President's State of the Union Address)
• Evolutionary basis for learning (based on an amazing book I read last semester)
• How does home environment affect learning
• The declining value of education (tuition is rising at a faster rate than income)
• Do you have any more suggestions?

"Five" Events that Influenced American Education

This first blog topic was assigned. I had to explore this website to decide which events I think were most important in the history of American education. After nearly a day of reading, I was able to take the information from Edward Sass's timeline and narrow it down to a whopping five pages of events before I was unable to eliminate any more. What I found, however, was that the events I had chosen fell into six distinct categories. I'll briefly explain why I found these categories important now and in the coming weeks perhaps I will expand on each category with a few specific events. In no particular order:

• Money is directed away from education due to current events

Whether it be war or recession, education is always the first area to lose funding. In many instances, public schools were completely closed down because all of the teachers were fighting in a war or there simply wasn't any money. The budget cuts that students from Pre-K to Post Doc are feeling today are nothing new, but that definitely doesn't mean they don't hurt. Imagine an economy powered by people that couldn't get an education just because the schools were closed.

Key Events: The Civil War, The Great Depression, the Panic of 1873, World War II, United States Housing Bubble

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• Land Grant universities and associated experiment farms and extension services are established

Many of the nations first public universities were created as a result of the Land Grant Act and paved the way for schools to become research institutions by carrying out some of the nation's first large scale, publicly funded experiments. A lot of those universities have become some of the world's greatest schools (one school in particular comes to mind...). Even more important, those schools are now completing research that has the potential to cure some of the world's deadliest diseases and save the planet from environmental disaster among many other really great things.

Key Events: The First and Second Morrill Acts, the Hatch Act of 1877, and the Smith-Lever Act

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• Increasing levels of political correctness are seen in the classroom  

Idiotic! Feebleminded! Subnormal! Derogatory phrases like these were used until late into the 20th century. As societal opinions changed, so did the level of education provided to students who were previously shunned because of a disability or mental condition. Many students previously denied a valable education were suddenly able to learn and became active members of society.

Key Events: Founding of Asylums for the Deaf and Blind, PARC v Pennsylvnia, Education of All Handicapped Children Act, and IDEA

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• Education for the disadvantaged was available before education for the gifted

Similar to the development of education for the disabled, education for exceptionally bright children was not thoroughly explored until the early 20th century. Suddenly, students were given the opportunity to go above and beyond the confines of the classroom to achieve as much as possible. Although both groups of citizens deserve a quality education, I feel that a centuries long lack of education for the gifted may have prevented America from advancing as much as possible.

Key  Events: The Lewis Terman Study at Stanford University, Sputnik, Marland Report to Congress

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• Supreme Court has to step in before minority citizens are able to receive a fair education

A dark spot on America's history, the highest court in the land often had to be the ones to demand that a certain class of citizens is given an education. Without many court rulings, it is very likely that only wealthy white males would have access to an education. Women, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans have all been discriminated against and segregated from the rest of the population at one time or another. The effects of being placed in this kind of situation can reverberate through a family for decades and is partly responsible for persistent poverty in racial minorities.

Key Events: The End of Reconstruction, Indian Boarding Schools, Plessy v. Ferguson, Alvarez vs. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove (California) School District, Brown v. BOE Topeka, Title IX, and Lau v. Nichols

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• The development of technology lags way behind the use of that technology in the classroom

Although I can't readily verify this assumption in regards to older technology, my own experiences tell me that it's true. Schools, especially K-12 public schools, are often last to have access to the latest technology. For example, the smart board was invented in 1991 and is only just now beginning to be introduced in schools. I learned how to type on a decades old typewriter in 2001 even though personal computers had been a part of my life for nearly a decade already. As soon as new technology finds its way into the classroom as soon as it is invented, scholastic achievement will improve.

Key Events: Invention of the Chalk Board, Typewriter, Computer, and Smart Board


I think that each of these categories of events provides an accurate picture of the history of education in America. I could have looked specifically at how individual philosophies have shaped the classroom, but each of these events probably did more to shape public education than any single idea could. Do you think I've left anything off of this list? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Introducing... Me!

My name is Annie and I'm starting this blog as part of a project for a teaching class I'm taking at Georgia Tech. There will be a lot of assigned topics that I have to cover, but hopefully I'll be able to find some of my own inspiration as well. You'll find that I already have a lot of opinions about education, but having no experience whatsoever you may feel free to dismiss them as an apprentice trying to tell the master how best to do his job. For example, I find that a lot of schools focus on making sure students don't fail. Why not have a little confidence and start expecting more out of students? We might just be surprised at the results!