e:\doc\web\99\05\mundy.txt Date sent: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 09:04:09 -0500 To: "ClearingHouse" From: "J. E. Stone" Subject: [education-consumers] You get this feeling we've been duped? Send reply to: "J. E. Stone" ===================================================================== Does this guy have it right or what! "We've been taking the educational breakdown to the same mechanic since the 1960s, and the problem has never been fixed. Maybe it's time to try a new repair shop." Amen. John ************************************************ You get this feeling we've been duped? Dave Mundy's Column, The Katy Times, March 24, 1999 Saw the story in the Houston paper's Sunday edition: some schools are cheating on the TAAS, and it may be that cheating is epidemic around the state. The city of Houston probably experienced a power surge when all the lights went on over the heads of all those reporters and editors at the Chronicle building. Educational conservatives around the state have been saying there are problems with the TAAS for a couple of years now, foremost among those problems being the temptation to cheat. They've been shouted down by the establishment for making trouble, because Texas has the best public education accountability system in the country, we're moving in the right direction, yada-yada-yada. As happened with the Phonics/Whole Language debate, those same "extremist" voices have again been vindicated. You get the feeling that maybe some of the other stuff they've been saying may also be correct? The Chronicle's story suggests the entire Texas public education accountability system is at risk if it's producing results no one will believe. I would suggest the state's entire public education system is at risk because it is founded on an unworkable paradigm: that all children can achieve the same "high" learning results. Put yourself in the position of a classroom teacher, campus principal, administrator or Governor, and you can see why this system isn't working. You are given a state curriculum guideline which has no hard-and-fast learning goals -- the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. This watered-down idea of what constitutes "knowledge" is sometimes refined, sometimes further diluted, at the local level, but in all cases remains purposely vague. From that state guideline, someone creates a test, the TAAS. Next, you're told that mandatory statewide test will be given to your students. You're trained on how to administer the test. You're told that you get extra money when your students score well, and if they don't, your career is kaput. The first couple of times the test is administered, lots of kids fail it because they've never heard of most of this stuff; they've been in school learning about the rain forest and how to shop at the mall, after all -- because that's what the TEKS requires, in a roundabout way. If you're the Guv, you're cognizant of the fact that you're not going to be elected President if it turns out the education system you "invented" is a flop. So the word filters out quietly from your office that perhaps students will score better if the questions get a little easier each year ... as has happened in Texas. Back at the campus level, despite bold proclamations from above that you're not doing so, you're teaching kids how to take the test. Then you're teaching them what's on the test. In the end, the temptation grows to make sure they get the right answers: after all, it's your job at stake, not the students'. Somewhere along the way, some mean ol' right-wing fanatic suggests that maybe, just maybe, we're going about this all wrong. Instead of working from the lowest common denominator, we should instead start from the highest common denominator -- and recognize the fact that not everyone can achieve that high level, because people are different. Instead of demanding that all students pass, we should instead demand that all students have the OPPORTUNITY to pass, while recognizing that some can't and others don't want to. The educational colossus adamantly opposes these ideas, of course. It's become a multi-billion-dollar industry because it's duped the politicos and the public into believing that it, and only it, can produce the ideas needed to "fix" public education. And amazingly, those ideas change every few years -- along with billions of dollars' worth of textbooks, speaking fees, seminars, ancillary materials, college tuition for remedial courses and technology -- as each "fix" flops and another "fix" is introduced by the same people whose original "fix" flopped. If you have a car and it breaks down, you take it to a mechanic, right? If what the mechanic fixed breaks down, you might try taking it back once or twice ... but after a while, you start getting the idea that maybe the mechnic is playing you for a fool. We've been taking the educational breakdown to the same mechanic since the 1960s, and the problem has never been fixed. Maybe it's time to try a new repair shop. --------------------------- Forwarded by Jimmy Kilpatrick EducationNews.org http://www.EducationNews.org ReadbyGrade3.com http://www.readbygrade.com k-12Science.org http://www.k-12science.org ===================================================================== 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