\doc\web\99\02\bracey.txt Almost all states declined on reading. This strongly suggests a technical flaw in NAEP, not a failure of "whole language". The NAEP proficiency levels have been rejected by virtually everyone who knows anything about testing, including studies by the GAO and by CRESST at UCLA. The same kids third graders who didn't do well by NAEP standards finished 2nd in the world in the most recent international study of reading among 27 nations. NAEP standards said only 18% of fourth graders were proficient at science and only 2% were advanced. But these were precisely the same fourth graders who finished third among 26 nations in the Third International Mathemativs and Science Study. So I say to you carpers: eat sxxx! +OK 10456 octets Received: from smtp08.nwnexus.com (smtp08.nwnexus.com [206.63.63.42]) by mail1.halcyon.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA13877 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 04:59:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from ripple.dundee.net (ripple.dundee.net [206.249.104.12]) by smtp08.nwnexus.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id EAA00322 for ; Tue, 2 Feb 1999 04:56:39 -0800 Message-Id: From: "Donna Garner" To: "ClearingHouse" Subject: [education-consumers] Part 1 -- Discussion with Gerald Bracey Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 07:06:18 -0600 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: "Donna Garner" Precedence: bulk Status: ===================================================================== Here is a discussion between Gerald Bracey (research director of Phi Delta Kappan) and myself. I had sent out the article (below) on performance assessments, and Bracey saw it on one of the education loops and wrote to me. Here is our exchange (Part 1 -- Part 2 can be found in the next post): ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------- My article on performance assessments: IS THE PROCESS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE RIGHT ANSWER? by Donna Garner January 27, 1999 Intelligent people should be saying: "Do performance assessments actually raise academic achievement? Show me the peer-reviewed, replicated, empirical data. If you can't produce the evidence, then quit trying to shove it down our throats." California tried performance assessments a few years ago. According to Maureen Dimarco who was the Secretary of Education at the time, their CLAS test and its accompanying philosophy were a dismal failure. Kentucky also led the nation in performance assessments with its KIRIS test. So much chaos has arisen over that test and philosophy of instruction that their legislature had to restructure their entire state accountability plan. By the way, are California and Kentucky leading the nation in academic achievement with the students who passed through their performance assessments classrooms? If that philosophy of instruction has been so successful, how come their students' academic achievement has not been proclaimed far and wide? In fact, it is common knowledge that those two states have terrible reputations so far as their past educational progress is concerned. Thankfully, California has just recently taken some bold steps to return their schools to explicit, academic, fact-based instruction. Let's take a hard look at our own Texas classrooms and our own students. The essay on the TAAS writing section is a type of performance assessment. Have our students who have now spent years learning how to write TAAS essays become better writers than those students who were in our parents' generation? Ask any veteran English teacher who is over 50 if his students write as well as students of days gone by. It is true that our TAAS-driven students are doing better so far as knowing how to "play the TAAS game," but are they really better writers? Do they write correctly with masterful use of vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar? Maybe I have missed it, but I do not hear the business world raving about how wonderfully our TAAS-taught graduates perform their communication skills in the business world, and I certainly have not heard university professors bragging about our public school products. Practical common sense would dictate that if performance assessments have not proven to raise academic achievement, then why is Texas hurtling full-speed ahead to implement performance assessments throughout our curriculum requirements (TEKS), our staff-development training, our textbooks, and our TAAS tests? If explicit, academic, fact-based curriculum produced past generations who were responsible for inventing most of the progressive, modern-day technology and infrastructure which we now enjoy, why do we feel we must throw away that system of education? We Texans need to do some serious soul-searching before we adopt elementary math textbooks, presently up for adoption in every Texas public school district. Many of these textbooks are blatantly performance-based with huge numbers of pages spent on everything-under-the-sun except teaching children how to get the correct answer. These books and others coming after them will seal the fate of future generations. Donna Garner High School Teacher 236 Cross Country Drive Hewitt, TX 76643 (254) 666-2798 For a rating of Texas elementary math textbooks, go to http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------- Gerald Bracey's response to my article: In re Donna Garner's tirade on performance assessment: Well, if you want your airline pilot to be able to handle a multiple choice test on navigation, fly at your own risk. Only performance tests can deal with it. And how do you come by saying that California's performance assessments are a "disaster?" The evidence on "whole language" failure is totally lacking. Even if all scores are going down, I would surmise that it has more to do with the fact that by the end of this year, 505 of ALL California students will be Hispanic. Nothing against Hispanics, mind you, but many are immigrant, people who haven't mastered English. Garner asks (rhetorically) " Do performance assessments actually raise academic achievement?" She says "show me"? But by what criteria? Multiple choice tests? Nonsense. You have to use a form of assessment that is appropriate. As for "Ask any English teacher..." This is a totally bogus appeal to nostalgia. A few years ago at the annual large scale assessment conference that used to be run by the Educational Commission of the States and is now held by the Council of Chief State School Officers, Texas educators made a presentation on writing achievement. One interesting fact was that they had taken the essays judged the very best in the first assessment and re-submitted them to judges four years later. Now, they were only average. "Veteran teachers" are likely to be remembering the Golden Era when Texas schools were segregated and no one gave a damn how black and Hispanic kids fared in school. The business world has been ranting about schools since at least the late 1800's. I have quotes for those who are interested. The business world does not distinguish between education and training. In addition, if they can get schools to do for free what they are currently spending (niggardly sums) for on the job training they are ahead. Ms Garner's contentions have no real data to back them up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- My two letters back to Mr. Bracey (I did not know who the gentleman was at the time): How many years have you taught in the public schools? Where are you teaching right now? Are you in a high school classroom every single day? My "lab" is my high school classroom; and I have real, live "specimens" daily. Can you say the same? Donna Garner dggarner@swbell.net ======================================================== It is hard for me to believe that you are still extolling the merits of whole language when so many youngsters' ruined lives are proof of the failure of such a reading method. These whole language youngsters cannot be successful in school because of their lack of ability to read. Therefore, they find other interests -- usually in at-risk activities. The debate is over; whole language reading instruction is a failure. Phonemic awareness/decoding skills taught through direct, systematic instruction are the components of successful reading programs, and there are voluminous research studies which prove it (i. e., National Institutes of Health, Project Follow Through). Donna Garner dggarner@swbell.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------- Mr. Bracey's letter back to me: This is the kind of civility which Gerald Bracey exhibited in his latest message to me today after I sent him Dr. David Klein's response together with Richard Colvin's article in LA Times, 1995: ======================================================== This is such horseshit. Almost all states declined on reading. This strongly suggests a technical flaw in NAEP, not a failure of "whole language". The NAEP proficiency levels have been rejected by virtually everyone who knows anything about testing, including studies by the GAO and by CRESST at UCLA. The same kids third graders who didn't do well by NAEP standards finished 2nd in the world in the most recent international study of reading among 27 nations. NAEP standards said only 18% of fourth graders were proficient at science and only 2% were advanced. But these were precisely the same fourth graders who finished third among 26 nations in the Third International Mathemativs and Science Study. So I say to you carpers: eat shit! ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or +OK 2610 octets Received: from smtp03.nwnexus.com (smtp03.nwnexus.com [206.63.63.41]) by mail1.halcyon.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA03394 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 20:08:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from ripple.dundee.net (ripple.dundee.net [206.249.104.12]) by smtp03.nwnexus.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id UAA04579 for ; Thu, 4 Feb 1999 20:08:30 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: From: "Donna Garner" To: "ClearingHouse" Subject: [education-consumers] From PDK Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 19:46:31 -0600 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: "Donna Garner" Precedence: bulk Status: ===================================================================== Gerald Bracey has written a number of articles and books for ASCD, has had articles published by AASA and other professinal organizations. The American Association of School Administrators highlighted Gerald Bracey on its cover last year along with several others identifying them and advocates for public education. Gerald is a controversial individual as he doesn't back down from anyone. He almost always has the research data to back up his position. I repeat, he is not an employee of Phi Delta Kappa International, ,he is not the Director of Research. The Research Director for Phi Delta Kappa is Dr. Larry Barber. Ron Joekel Executive Director PDK Sent Via PDK's ED-LINK BBS...Connecting Educators Around the World. ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or .