Burdensome and Demoralizing

AFT president Edward McElroy was one of those who testified at the senate hearings on NCLB held Tuesday. AFT has been rather supportive of NCLB, so some of the language in his testimony surprised me:

It’s demoralizing for students, parents, teachers and communities when they know that their schools are making solid academic progress, yet still see them listed in the local paper as “not making the grade.”

At one recent town hall meeting on NCLB convened by the AFT, the comments of a fourth-grade teacher from Boston reflected this demoralization: “The entire reputation of our school hangs on one test,” she said. “It’s not about balanced curriculum, enrichment or learning anymore. It’s all about avoiding that ‘failing school’ label.”

And

Educators also tell us they are required to administer test upon test upon test, including school, district and state tests. This layering of tests leads to an excessive amount of what should be instructional time being diverted instead to testing and drill-and-kill preparation, which results in a narrowing of the curriculum to only those subjects being tested. Students should have science, social studies, the arts, history—and recess.

And

Let me be clear: NCLB in its current form is burdensome and demoralizing to teachers, and yet they continue to teach and continue to adhere to requirements that allow them to teach because they have chosen the teaching of children as a career. But it is unacceptable to ask them to meet yet another unproven federal requirement.

Teachers want to be effective. And schools must be places where teachers feel they can be effective. We ask too many teachers to teach and students to learn in conditions that frankly are shameful—in dilapidated school buildings, without the basic materials they need, and in unsafe conditions that are hardly conducive to teaching and learning.

You can read the entire statement here (pdf).

100 Million Blogs

From today's Education Week:

NAEP Writing Exams Going Digital in 2011
By Lynn Olson

Starting in 2011, the National Assessment of Educational Progress will test how well students in grades 8 and 12 can write on computers, rather than with the old schoolhouse standbys of pencils and paper.

The board that oversees NAEP, called “the nation’s report card,” unanimously approved the change from handwritten to computerized exams as part of a new framework for the writing assessment adopted at a March 1-3 meeting in Nashville, Tenn.

In 4th grade, writing will still be tested using a paper-and-pencil format in 2011, in part because many elementary students currently lack keyboarding skills and experience. But the framework encourages a computer-based writing assessment for that grade as well by 2019.

The National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the federally sponsored assessment, approved the changes to reflect the ways in which technology has changed the way people write and the kinds of writing they do.

According to the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework, 100 million blogs—online journals—now exist worldwide, and 171 billion e-mail messages are sent daily. Future writing instruction, it says, must take into account how computers affect both the writing process and the types of text produced.

The article concludes with a quote from NCTE president-elect Kathi Yancey: The framework "provides for a more rhetorical view of writing, where purpose and audience are at the center of writing tasks.” The framework also “invites students as writers to compose at the keyboard,” she added, “which provides a direct link to the kind of composing writers do in college and in the workplace, thus bringing this assessment in line with lifelong composing practices.”

You can read the whole thing here (registration required).

Reclaiming the Education Doctorate

From Inside Higher Ed:

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council of Academic Deans in Research Education Institutions have announced a three-year campaign to “reclaim the education doctorate and to transform it into the degree of choice for the next generation of school and college leaders.” Officials at 21 universities that offer the education doctorate have pledged to work to redesign the degree. Currently, the Ed.D. is viewed as “Ph.D.-lite,” said Lee S. Schulman, president of Carnegie. He said that as part of this transformation, it may be the case that the Ed.D. should be replaced with a new term for what he termed the “professional practice doctorate.”

How's the Job Market Where You Are?

There's an article in today's Detroit News about how tight the job market is for teachers in Michigan ("75% of education school grads can't get jobs in Michigan"). I don't know what the overall numbers would be for new education graduates here in New Mexico, but for prospective English teachers, I'd say the market is at a state of equilibrium--there are about as many jobs as there are new graduates.

What's the market for new teachers like in your area?

Reading First

Good story about Reading First by Diana Jean Schemo in today's NY Times. Focusing on Madison, Wisconsin's decision not to accept federal funds for its reading program, Schemo's piece does a good job of making the conflicts around Reading First comprehensible to those who aren't educators or policy-insiders. Included are many interesting items, such as the exchange between Kathryn Howe of the Reading First technical assistance center and Madison school officials. Among Howe's observations was that "the city’s program lacked uniformity and relied too much on teacher judgment, [so] they could not vouch to Washington that its approach was grounded in research." So much for teacher judgement.

There's a problematic characterization (maybe caricature is a better word) of whole language in the opening paragraphs, but I think the negative depiction of the Dept. of Ed's top-down approach to reform and the questions raised about the "science" being promoted may outweigh that in the long run.

You can read it here (registration required).

NCLB Hearing

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing on NCLB reauthorization yesterday. The focus was "Strategies for Attracting, Supporting, and Retaining High Quality Educators." Some semi-interesting testimony(if you like that sort of thing). Click here to read it or watch it.

In the News

Three items this morning for your consideration:

Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier have started a joint blog on the Education Week site. It will be interesting to see them debate their differences. So far they've been agreeing more than disagreeing, but I expect that will change over time. The blog is called Bridging Differences, and unlike much content on the Ed Week site, you can read it without registering.

At Inside Higher Ed, there's a piece about the National Education Association's new plan to deal with the growth of adjunct faculty positions. The article provides an overview of the whole adjunct issue, including the positions held by AAUP and the AFT. (I'd be interested in hearing your comments about the role of adjuncts in teacher education programs.)

Finally, if you were fortunate enough to attend the CEE luncheon in Nashville, you'll want to know that Sherman Alexie's new novel is out. It's called Flight: A Novel and apparently deals with a time-traveling teenager name "Zits." You can read the publisher's information about it here.