Awards for kids to do well on tests

From the Education Week article: Motivating 12th Graders to Ace NAEP: Try Prom Tickets

"..schools, with NAGB's blessing, are actually offering stuff to seniors to "motivate" them to do better on the famed exam known as "the nation's report card."

My take on this:

If kids learned at an early age the merit of intrinsic rewards, they'd be more likely to want to do well on any test, simply to challenge themselves for their personal benefit. Right now though, kids are tested so much, it loses value to them.

Not only are they burdened at a young age to sit tests, but their school days are getting more rigid without enough time for things that stimulate their brains, which includes plenty of recess, and play time in kindergarten. What we are doing to young children is appalling and unethical from a child development standpoint as well as a humane one.
What has happened to educational policymakers empathic capability? Perhaps they did not have any to begin with.

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The Control of Teachers and Schools

From the book What does it mean to be well educated?: by Alfie Kohn

There are standards offered as guidelines ("See if this way of thinking about teaching can help you improve your craft"), and then there are standards presented as mandates ("Teach this or else"). Virtually all the states have chosen the latter course. The effect has not only been to control teachers, but to usurp the long-established power of local school districts to chart their own course. If there has ever been a more undemocratic school reform movement in U.S. educational history than what is currently taking place in the name of standards, I haven't heard of it.

..the standards themselves, if handed down as requirements, embody that same determination on the part of policymakers to do things to educators and students rather than to work with them.

My nominee for the most chillingly Orwellian word now in widespread use is “alignment” – as in, “How can we make teachers ‘align’ their teaching to the state standards?” A remarkable number of people, including some critics of high-stakes testing, have casually accepted this sort of talk despite the fact that it is an appeal to naked power.

“Alignment” isn’t about improvement; it’s about conformity.
..While plenty of teachers need help, virtually everyone is likely to resist having the state try to micro manage his or her classroom.

..After new proficiency exams were failed by a significant proportion of students in several other states, education officials there responded by making the tests even harder the following year...The commissioner of education of Colorado [William J. Moloney] offered some insight into the sensibility underlying such decisions:

“Unless you get bad results,” he declared,”it’s highly doubtful you have done anything useful with your tests. Low scores have become synonymous with good tests.”

Such is the logic on which the tougher-standards movement has been built.

What has happened to our profession?

Here's a poem by long-time education advocate/activist Don Perl of The Coalition for Better Education. He refused to administer the CSAP (Colorado's assessments) to his Jr. High students. He says:

"I came across this poem I wrote almost 10 years ago in the aftermath of my boycott of CSAP testing in February of 2001.

What has happened to our profession?

"We’ve seen the passage of a generation
in which open minds have passed from fashion,
and the items on our job description
have drastically changed their political position.

What happened to shared thoughts and imparting wisdom?
Now we teach to tests, dull children’s minds
and have become a collective administrative technician.

What has happened to our profession?

It’s been on trial at some secret adjudication
and been abandoned without adequate representation.
It’s been attacked and maligned at every legislative session.
Some say there’s already been a secret, subversive elimination.

What has happened to our profession?

When will we join together, stand and say
that politicians don’t know the way?

Democratic schools are not to be factories of production.
True education serves a nobler function.
The insidious results of categorization
will starkly come to light in the devastation and desolation
of the minds and spirits of the coming generation.

We’ll wonder what happened to the ancient Socratic concept of cooperation.
We’ll see our society ever more in isolation.
Oh, those bleak visions are replete with trepidation.
And then, too late, we’ll ask again,

What has happened to our profession?

Now, before we witness further deterioration,
we must give our colleagues some supportive representation.
We must ward off this horrific political invasion,
and allow hearts and open minds to return to fashion.

We must nurture the concept of cooperation,
and dignify the ideal of true education.
We must say no to standardization,
assembly line production,
and cowardly administration.

We must revive the dignity of our profession."

Superintendent terminates creative learning

Colorado parent Julie Blehm gave the following address to the Greeley-Evans Board of Education. She has a fourth grader and Kindergartener attending Meeker Elementary.

"I believe CSAP is the culprit for many of the problems that parents like me are having with the district right now. I understand that there has to be a system for testing whether the schools are performing in accordance to the district and state levels. This is what CSAP is supposed to be measuring. We do need a way to figure out the effectiveness of each school in the state.

Unfortunately, that is not how the data is being used. The district is taking these results and punishing the teachers, as well as the students for not performing at top levels. Teachers are being rigorously trained to teach a curriculum that does not support individual teaching technique. Brilliant teachers are being reduced to scripted programs.

The entire focus of our school system is centered on the results of one moment, in one day of a child’s life. It is a snapshot. Surely anyone can see the flaw here; an upset stomach, needing a potty break, thirst, hunger, bad sleep, a runny nose. I could go on and on. The point is, there is way too much emphasis on a test that doesn’t accurately measure any child.

When Friday Fun got removed, it was just another blow to the confidence I had in the school. My child scored well in all three categories on CSAP, and yet, she was told that because the whole school didn’t perform as well as the district wanted, ALL students will suffer the consequence. How can you possibly justify this!

Friday Fun was a reward for doing great the entire week. She could choose to learn a foreign language, explore her creativity in art, and learn how to play chess. This was a 25 minute chunk of time in school that she had completely earned and very much deserved! It was a time that was not contingent on test scores. Friday Fun was available for every student, no matter if you scored well on CSAP or not.

When Friday Fun was discontinued because of CSAP, that is when I realized that the only worth my child had to the district was her score. I don’t think they care if my child is enjoying learning or being introduced to new and exciting things, if it can’t be measured on CSAP, it has no importance to the district. Instead of caring if my child is getting an enriching education, the district wants to know if something is being done to increase my child’s reading score.

I never cared for the CSAP testing before this happened, but I also understood the need for it. When my child actually got Friday Fun taken away, punished for a test that shouldn’t even impact her life, I knew I needed to change my position.

CSAP is a necessary test that should be used for better understanding the effectiveness of each school. It should not be used as a measure of a child and it certainly should not become leverage against a program whose sole purpose was to enrichment our children’s lives.

I’m opting out of a testing program that has been detrimental to my child’s school experience. It has created an unhealthy environment for our teachers and children."