| Monday
April 17, 2008
Tax Day
The Republic, RIP
I am getting my taxes out but there is thought provoking
stuff about education in the morning papers. I'll get to that after my walk.
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Go read this:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/
la-na-testgraders17apr17,1,5906699.story?coll=la-news-a_section
In Florida, School Test Graders Face Scrutiny
By Susan Jacobson, Orlando Sentinel April 17, 2006
Two state senators seeking information on the
temporary workers who grade parts of Florida's high-stakes school exams are
fuming after being told it is a "trade secret."
Senate Democratic leader Les Miller Jr. of
Tampa and Sen. Walter G. "Skip" Campbell Jr. (D-Tamarac) requested the names
and qualifications of test graders after learning they were being recruited
in Central Florida for $10-an-hour jobs.
A letter issued last week by the state
Department of Education informed the senators that CTB/McGraw-Hill, which
administers the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test under state contract,
considered the information a trade secret exempt from public disclosure.
<snip>
and think on the consequences here. For example,
The graders must have a bachelor's degree in a
field related to the subject of the essay and short-answer responses that
they score.
Critics say a background in education, more
training in assessment test scoring and perhaps an advanced degree should be
required.Contemplate what is being said here: a degree
in physics isn't useful for grading examinations in physics. What you need
is a degree in teaching and education. A degree in mathematics doesn't
qualify you to grade mathematics papers. You need to have sat through four
years of Education College Mickey Mouse, not only to teach anything, but to
grade examinations in the subject.
If the country wants to make war on national enemies, it might consider
the teachers unions as a beginning.
"If a foreign nation had imposed this system of education on the United
States, we would rightly consider it an act of war."
That from 1983. It has got worse since. When they proclaim me emperor, my
first move will be to abolish teacher unions; my second will be to abolish
federal aid to education and return both finances and control of schools to
local districts; my third will be to tell the Armed Services that part of
their mission is to set up and run schools on base for their own children
and make those schools examples for the world.
Some years ago the Reverend Moon's Unification Church bought the
University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut. At the time I was asked
for advice on how they might improve the University. You must understand,
Moon paid for this, but his advisory committee was drawn from some of the
independent organizations, including the International Conference on the
Unity of the Sciences, which he funded but which were governed by
independent boards who had few or no Unification Church members. Charles
Sheffield and I were part of that, as were many others with no connection
with the Unification Church. In any event, they asked for my advice on what
to do to make Bridgeport a great university.
I had a number of suggestions, but my principal suggestion was that they
form a University School, K-8, to take in local pupils as well as the
children of faculty, with the goal of teaching every child in the school to
read by the end of first grade, and a number of other such goals. Teachers
who could not meet the results standard would be dismissed; those that did
would be the advisory board for the University's College of Education. The
Principal of the school and its governing board would be independently
appointed; we had a list of distinguished candidates for Board Members with
perhaps the least distinguished being me.
Needless to say the project did not go forward, not because Moon's people
wouldn't pay for it -- they thought it was a good idea -- but because the
faculty didn't agree. Now I understand the misgivings of the University of
Bridgeport faculty at finding their University had been bought by the
Unification people and they were now being addressed by right wing madmen
like Pournelle; but I did find that much of their opposition was ritual, and
many of them registered their opposition to any changes before they were
told what changes were suggested.
The Education Department did not seem at all interested in setting up a
demonstration school. Perhaps they feared contamination by association, but
given the abysmal state of the Bridgeport public school in the areas near
the University, it did not seem to me that it could do any harm to start a
school dedicated to results rather than credentials. The notion was to start
with first grade and add a grade each year, so that after 8 years you would
have a school in which essentially every child could read and would be
familiar with basic science, arithmetic (with mandatory memorization of the
addition and multiplication tables), and some basic history and civics. No
"social science" or "fuzzy math" or such.
In any event, nothing came of any of this, and in fact the only serious
discussions took place among the people Moon went to for advice, not among
the University people. I find that sad.
My thought in suggesting a University of Bridgeport school that took in
the local pupils (the University is very much in an inner city area) was
that demonstrating success might have some impact on at least some of the
more thoughtful professors of education. I still think something of this
sort could be done if a university and a philanthropist were to cooperate.
All kids can learn to read in first grade, with very few exceptions. A good
education can be given in schools with few resources: witness Capleville,
where I came from, 2 grades to a room, 30 or so pupils per grade, teachers
with 2 year Associate of Arts degrees; no frills, but every doggone one of
the kids, mostly farm children, could read, recite some poetry, and knew the
addition and times tables.
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